


A Slippery Slope

by SyntheticEuphoria



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: BDSM, Body Modification, Bondage, Consensual Sex, Consensual Violence, Developing Relationship, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Fingerfucking, Hand & Finger Kink, Immobility, M/M, Medical Kink, Medical Torture, Mind Games, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Violence, Oral Sex, Psychological Drama, Psychopaths In Love, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Sexual Violence, Shower Sex, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, Violence, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-31 23:35:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 34
Words: 34,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticEuphoria/pseuds/SyntheticEuphoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Copter meets Crane. Copter likes Crane. Crane wants Copter to leave him the frag alone.<br/>Snapshots from the lives of a rather unlikely duo.</p><p>Warnings for violence, mind games, a very twisted romance, body-modification, and Sticky Sex varying from Consensual to Non-Con.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The world melted and swirled, colors dripping into one another like a painting gone mad. Everything kept shifting, creating new shapes, new patterns. And there was a loud, buzzing sort of white noise overlaying the chaotic vision. All in all, Vortex had woken up to worse hangovers; his head hardly even ached at all!

Actually, it was less of an ache and more of a dull, dizzy throb. Other things, though – more intimate things – now those definitely _ached_. Idly, he wondered just how overcharged he’d gotten to not remember getting fragged in the valve hard enough to hurt as much as it did right now. Whoever he’d interfaced with, he must have been huge; there was sharp pain all the way up at the back of his port.

Groaning, he started to shift up from where he lay on his front. Oh, hey – his hands were tied up. Not exactly news-worthy, but he didn’t generally let just _anybody_ restrain him. Then again, he had been really, really drunk.

And… wait. Wait. What?

His hands weren’t just… They weren’t just tied behind him, like he’d thought. Blinking his optic band, trying to get his vision to focus, he tilted his head back and to the side. Not quite the right angle to see, but it felt like…

Another groan, not his own this time, sounded to his left side – Hook. Now that he could see better, this was definitely the medbay. Hook was slowly sitting up on one of the berths, holding his head. Now, that was interesting – from what Vortex knew of him, the stuck-up perfectionist usually declined any chances given to partake of high grade; something about interfering with his ability to work, as if that mattered to anyone but him. Ha!

“G’morning, dearest Hookums,” Vortex purred, rocking a bit from side to side on his chest.

Hook staggered upright, dropping to the floor heavily, and glanced up. Then his optics visibly reset and he _stared_. “Oh. Oh, I had forgotten.”

Vortex chuckled and rubbed his thighs together slowly. The sensation was… unique. And exquisite.

“Is _that_ what I did to you?”

“Never knew you were so _kinky_ , Hooky. Would’a offered myself up to your tender mercies _way_ sooner if I’d known.” He rocked himself up onto his knees and spun, sitting on the edge of the berth with his hands at his lower back. He spread his legs wide for Hook to see. “I mean, really – who would’ve thought you could come up with something like _this?_ ”

The Constructicon stared harder, the optics behind his visor glued between the helicopter’s thighs at the thick links of chain leading from _within_ the mech’s valve back to his wrists. “I really… I thought that I had dreamt that part.”

Vortex chuckled again and tugged on the twin chains a bit, spreading the sides of his port apart. “Are these really hooked up inside of me? Seriously, that is some kinked up slag, Hook.”

“I…”

“Oh, don’t go getting all mortified on me, now. This is _delightful!_ Can I attach them myself, or do I need somebody else to help? Is there a lock inside, or are the chains welded right into me? Did you make any other modifications? Oh, tell me there are more!”

“You are… far too excited about all of this.”

“Hey, it’s either get excited, or get angry – I’d rather enjoy myself, and personally, I don’t think you should be complaining. Bad things happen when I get upset.”

“Yes, well.” Hook cleared his vocalizer and took a few steps nearer. “I suppose you have a point.” One hand was placed on Vortex’s thigh, and the medic leaned down for a better look. “All things considered, I should check you over to make sure that I did not… error whilst in my inebriated state.”

“Oh, you – always with the obsessive compulsions. Can’t you ever just take something as it is and enjoy it?”

“You expect me to… enjoy this?”

“Isn’t that what it’s there for? To be enjoyed?” Vortex coyly wrapped his legs around Hook’s hips and pulled him in. “Although, I am rather curious; when you decided to make these… adjustments… did you take into account the fact that the chains are going to make things quite interesting for whoever is doing the penetrating?”

A decidedly embarrassed expression crossed Hook’s face, but it quickly went away. “I confess that I do not… quite recall the specifics of what was going through my processors at the time, but…”

“But~?”

“I generally prefer to…” He trailed off into something quiet and unintelligible.

Vortex’s visor brightened with interest. “My dear Hook, are you a valve mech?”

“I…”

“Oh, you _are_ , aren’t you! And you’re all flustered about it, too. That’s just so cute!”

The medic glowered at the restrained Combaticon and abruptly shoved down on both his thighs, spreading them wide. “Continue to make such comments, and I shall do far worse than merely tie you up.”

Vortex’s rotors fairly quivered in anticipation. “Gotta tell ya – that’s not much incentive to shut up.”

Hook snorted in contempt and propelled himself away. “Turn over. If my memories are not in error, then there is a simple code-lock to your cuffs.”

“Releasing me already?” There was an undeniable note of disappointment in the helicopter’s voice.

“You have duties to attend to, no doubt. Come back and see me afterwards and I’ll remove the chains properly.”

Vortex blinked. “Remove them?”

“Yes,” Hook began, as though to an exceptionally dim-witted new-build. “We will need not speak of this event ever again. It will never have happened.”

Tipping his head forwards, Vortex’s optic band brightened. “But what if I don’t want them removed?”

This time, it was Hook’s turn to blink.

“No, really! I like them.” Kicking his legs and giggling, the grey mech tugged his hands to either side again, relishing the sensations of the chains against his inner walls, pulling the lips of his valve apart. He could feel himself dripping. “Can’t I keep them?”

“Vortex… I did _not_ install a way to remove the chains. They _are_ welded right to your insides.”

“Yeah, so?”

“In order to close yourself up, you would need to,” he paused, an inscrutable expression on his face, “to keep the chains inside of you.”

“Mm~, that sounds delightfully wicked. Just imagine – walking around all day, going about my duty cycles, handing in reports…” A slightly maniacal chuckle escaped him. “Oh, going into _battle_ would be fun like that. Constant stimulation, never ceasing; by Unicron’s wings, that sounds fantastic.”

Hook stared. Then he shook his head in disbelief. “Obviously, I should have taken the rumors of your insanity to spark; you are _glitched_.”

“Probably,” came the easy reply. “But at least I have fun!”


	2. Chapter 2

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG

“Vortex.”

“Mmmm~…”

“Vortex, hold _still_.”

“Mmmm, but it feels so good~…”

CLANG!!!-CLANG!!!-CLANG!!!

“OOOOH! More…” The copter’s voice was high and breathy, a pleasured sigh formed into words.

“Ugh.” A pause. “You are _really_ enjoying this? Truly?”

“Mhmmm!”

A sigh. “Fine.”

“…Mm? Why’d you stop? What’re you…? Hey! …Oh. _Oh_. Hahaha…”

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG

“Mmmm-YES! YES, just a little m-more, _oooh_ …”

Scrapper stared from his place at his workbench, wondering if his teammate knew just what kind of trouble he was getting himself into. //You realize that you are only encouraging his behavior,// he spoke over the bond.

Not glancing up, Hook shrugged. //He refused to cease moving.//

//Yes, but I believe that he _likes_ being tied down to the table.//

//He’s not wriggling anymore; that’s all that matters.//

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG

“There.” Hook examined the bent rotor he’d been banging back into shape, nimble fingers dancing along the edges, checking that everything was straight and level. He frowned as the thin metal shivered hard in his hands, and he whacked the helicopter in the back of the helm for it. “If you do not hold still, I’ll… I will turn off your pain receptors.”

Scrapper continued staring. Obviously, his engineer had taken a blow to the head. Offering to anaesthetize his patient as a threat?

The quivering stopped, and Hook _almost_ smiled. “Much better.” A few more moments as he finished checking the rotor, and he undid the medical restraints. “You are free to go, Vortex. Do try to refrain from getting Onslaught angry again anytime soon, won’t you? I have enough things to do around here without you wasting my time with easily avoidable injuries.”

Vortex’s entire rotor-hub gave a hard shudder. “Mm, no promises. You didn’t finish the job, after all.” There was a dangerous, purring undertone to the interrogator’s voice.

Frowning, Hook crossed his arms. “Of course I finished. I checked. You are perfectly repaired, all your rotors not a micron out of alignment.”

The helicopter’s optic band brightened significantly, his voice an almost teasing growl. “Not what I was talking about, Hookums.”

Scrapper scowled. “You – get out of our medbay. _Now_.”

“Make me.”

The Constructicon leader almost pulled out his gun and shot the mech, but that would only have meant that they would have to fix him again. Instead, he activated his comms and spoke aloud. “Scrapper to Onslaught: Would you kindly come collect your property from the medbay before it is dismantled for recycling?”

Vortex’s visor flashed, but he turned and exited without further protest.

As he sent a non-verbal transmission to Onslaught to disregard the previous message, Scrapper wasn’t sure if he should be more worried about the fact that he’d just made a new enemy, or that his own teammate did not seem more than mildly annoyed with the whole incident.


	3. Chapter 3

The room was dark but for the single, small lamp resting near Hook’s elbow on the work table. It was late, the medbay devoid of both his gestalt and patients. The Constructicon was _almost_ done with his latest schematic – well, as done as it would be until Scrapper got a hold of it and started making the inevitable changes. Carefully, he drew a long, straight line, followed by a gently sweeping curve, followed again by a pair of perfectly printed glyphs – a note about structural integrity – next to where the two intersected.

He started to set the stylus down while he checked over his work, and nearly jumped out of his own armor when grey arms loosely draped themselves over his shoulders. “What’cha doin’?”

Hook froze, then forced himself to relax. “Vortex,” he began in a forcibly neutral tone, “I believe that I have explained to you – on close to half a dozen separate occasions, now – that you are _not_ to disturb me while I work.” A dark grey facemask gently nuzzled against his cheek, and Hook tried not to pull away from the contact; reacting would only encourage the deranged mech.

“I waited until you put your pen down, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and I thank you for that. Nonetheless, I am still _working_. How did you even get in here? I am _certain_ that I locked the doors.” He was going to have to change the codes… Again. And probably add some manual locks, for good measure.

Vortex, predictably, ignored the question. “So, what are you building, anyway? Another of Megatron’s brilliant doomsday machines?” The sarcasm in his voice was palpable.

“ _Yes_ , actually. And he’s set the deadline for the end of this orn, so if you wouldn’t mind letting me get back to finishing thi-”

“Hey, I’m bored. We should frag.”

Hook nearly got whiplash from the topic change. “No.”

“Why not?” Vortex wrapped his arms a little tighter around the crane and nudged the edge of his facemask against the nearby audio. “Got a processor-ache, or somethin’?” There was a teasing grin in the mech’s voice.

“Along with the stipulation of not bothering me while I work, I have also told you that I am simply not interested in a reproduction of that one, drunken mistake. I intend for it to _remain_ as just One – Drunken – Mistake.” He put emphasis on each of the words, but he maintained his neutral tone of voice.

“Aww… But I don’t even have anything to remember it by!”

Hook suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Onslaught had _yanked_ the chains out of his subordinate as soon as he found out about them, and dumped the bleeding helicopter in the medbay. There hadn’t only been energon leaking out from between the Combaticon’s legs; something he had tried hard to forget. What he wished to remember even less was that Vortex hadn’t seemed visibly upset by any of this.

“And I don’t care. Find someone else to spend your time with. I’m _busy_.”

“And _I_ think that you’ll have time to finish this in the morning.”

Hook blinked as his chair was suddenly spun around, and he found himself with a lap full of grey limbs, lazily spinning rotors, and an overtly bright visor that was worryingly close to his own.

“I’m horny. And you need to get laid more often. Pretty sure I was the last playmate you had, and who _knows_ how long it had been before that.”

The Constructicon stood, dumping the helicopter on the floor, and sneered down at him. Even knowing that it was a mistake to so visibly show his hostility like that, it still made him feel a bit better. “Keep pushing me, Vortex…” He stowed the blueprints in his subspace and stormed out of the room. 

In the dim light of the one lamp, all alone on the floor of the medbay, the interrogator giggled. “Don’t you worry, Hooky-baby; I’m far from finished with you.”


	4. Chapter 4

The battle did not go as planned, which was predictable. Vortex thought it was funny that the plan failing was predictable – irony at work.

A lot of Decepticons had gotten the tar beaten out of them, but only a few needed real medical aid. Self-repair could take care of things like dents and frayed wiring, and many mechs on the _Victory_ preferred to do what manual repairs they could by themselves or with the one or two mechs they trusted to not outright sabotage them. For some reason, a lot of the guys on base didn’t like having Hook fix them.

“AAAARGH! For the love of Primus, please…! No… NO. NOOO-AAAAAH!”

Vortex couldn’t imagine why. He found the good doctor’s unique brand of bedside manner to be quite entertaining. Well, that was a lie… Not the entertaining part – the imagining part. _Logically_ , he understood that most living beings had an instinctive dislike of pain. Such an odd tendency…

“Stop whining. You would prefer to bleed out, I suppose? You want me to leave your arm dangling by a few wires until the strain snaps it right off, hmm?”

“Please… please, just… knock me offline or _somethi_ -HRRNNG!”

“That would be a waste of both time and effort. Do you honestly think that you deserve special attention? You were a miserable block of useless waste material out on the battlefield, and you know it. This is what you deserve for getting yourself so mangled. I should be with Scrapper, designing weapons, not repairing refuse so that it can go out and get itself torn up again.”

The screams were musical. Hook’s pragmatic, calm voice overlaying the whole scene was icing on the oil cake. Vortex would have said that the mech turned sadism into an art form, but he knew better: Hook simply did not care about the pain he was causing. He neither took pleasure from nor was bothered by it. The neurological responses caused by his ministrations were merely an inevitable outcome, one he did not care to change.

It was quite intriguing, that level of apathy. Vortex, at least, took into account what sort of mental state he was causing when he tortured a mech – even if it was only for the sake of enjoyment. The medic just… didn’t. The helicopter had come to the conclusion that this was simply a ‘Hook Thing’ rather than an intrinsic part of the Constructicon gestalt, even if they did all act pretty distant at the best of times. At least Long Haul seemed to show sadistic tendencies now and again. And Scavenger showed signs of heightened empathy – a rare trait for a Decepticon, even one that had been reprogrammed. Bonecrusher was usually in too foul of a mood to tell anything about other than that he was angry. Mixmaster… was crazy; there was no telling anything with that mech. Scrapper was, without doubt, the most level-headed of the bunch, and while he had no qualms about causing pain, he wasn’t quite so uncaringly ruthless about it as Hook; he would take the extra few seconds to upload medical stasis commands, if only so he didn’t have to deal with the noise.

Unfortunately for the patients in the medbay, Scrapper was almost always too busy to bother helping Hook with the repairs. Well, unfortunately for the patients who were not Vortex – he was elated, and tried not to let his excitement as he waited for his turn vibrate him right off the berth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit (March 4): Changed "Nemesis" to "Victory" - was browsing the TFWiki and found out that fandom has been lying to me for all these years...


	5. Chapter 5

Hook had finished with his patients for the time-being and was off to one side, jacked into the terminal at his work station. He didn’t move much; just sat there, expression blank, one elbow resting on the table while his other hand was limp against his thigh.

Vortex wanted, so very badly, to go over there and distract him. Unfortunately, he was strapped down to the berth, supposedly so he wouldn’t muddle up his freshly-welded armor. Personally, he thought that was just an excuse – Hook was beginning to learn from experience: A Vortex free to move was a Vortex that hopped into laps and draped over shoulders and poked at sensitive seams that made Hook’s mouth twist into funny expressions.

Plus, being tied down with nothing to do was _boring_. He couldn’t even distract himself with the pain of his injuries because everything had gone numb after the overload...

Activating his vocalizer – he still had use of that method to bother the green and purple mech, at least – he immediately shut it off again when the door opened and Scavenger wandered over. Vortex stared at the mech. The mech stared back. Then the excavator just waved cheerfully and scuttled over to his teammate.

The helicopter blinked when Hook merely tipped his chin down to look at his lap suddenly full of Scavenger. How come _he_ got to do that and Vortex didn’t? Slaggin’ unfair is what it was.

Scavenger shifted to sprawl on his front across the medic’s thighs. His shovel was gently swishing from side to side, like the tail on some organic. The Combaticon tilted his head a bit when Hook’s hand simply came up and began to gently rub at the green lower back. The tail flicked at the contact, and then resumed its rhythm.

Well, this was interesting. Vortex continued to watch, taking note that the tail was slowly increasing in speed. Hook’s face had returned to gazing placidly at the wall, absorbed in whatever he was doing over the terminal, but he looked somehow more… relaxed. The mech’s fingers gently twirled patterns over his gestaltmate’s back, right at the base of his tail. Sometimes he would slip a single fingertip into the gap of the seam, and Scavenger’s right leg would give a small spasm. The tail kept speeding up, and neither of them made a sound.

Finally, the inevitable happened. Scavenger’s whole frame tensed up, tail lashing behind him, and he uttered a small mewl before going limp. Hook’s fingers danced up to the broader expanse of back above the tail, now simply smoothing across it with his palm. He was _still_ staring at the wall, and did not react when his teammate shifted upwards, nuzzled him affectionately, and slid away to wander back out of the room.

Vortex’s visor flashed, just once, in comprehension as he suppressed the urge to giggle. There were a lot of new ideas floating around inside his head, and it wouldn’t do any good if he gave himself away.


	6. Chapter 6

There were all kinds of ‘young,’ mused Vortex. The Decepticon gestalts were all pretty good examples of a few of them.

There was young like the Stunticons, who had been built and sparked on Earth; they had the programming of adult mechs, but nobody was fool enough to think of them as ‘mature’. They had no memories to pull from, no experience – they were no more than very well-informed younglings.

And you had young like the Combaticons, who weren’t really young at all. The bodies were new, but they’d been around as individuals since long before the war broke out. There was the very rare glitch when one of them would discover something different about his new body from the old, but it was usually quite a minor incident.

But then you had young like the Constructicons. They were somewhere in between… The bodies were new. The sparks were not. But… the minds were. Sort of; it was complicated. See, being reprogrammed did funny things to a mech’s psyche. 

Vortex had, on a few occasions, enjoyed the company of several reprogrammed mechs during his lifetime. Most of them had not survived the encounter, but that was not the point. These mechs tended to view their lives, _pre_ -reprogramming, as being that of a separate mech entirely. They had the memories, sure, but they were disassociated from them, like watching a recording that happened to have been from first-person point-of-view and included information about emotional state and other things that you wouldn’t normally get from a simple vid-screen viewing.

Now, it was important to note that what had happened to Vortex’s own gestalt was not truly a case of being reprogrammed. They had merely been given additional coding to ensure loyalty to Megatron and the Decepticon cause; nothing else about their personas had changed.

The Constructicons, though? They were almost completely different mechs. Mostly, their individual interests and abilities were unchanged, but to say that they were the same person would be like saying that an Earth fish was no different from a Sharkticon.

Yes, Scrapper had always been the take-charge type of guy who was good with organization and looking at the big picture. Sure, Scavenger still had an uncanny ability to find exactly the right materials and parts they needed for a certain project. And yeah, there had never been a time when Long Haul wasn’t really good at… well, hauling things.

But just because Bonecrusher had always been good at effectively demolishing a building didn’t mean that he’d always taken such great pleasure in watching something explode. Much the same, Hook’s obsession with aesthetics hadn’t always led him to look upon anything that wasn’t up to his standards with an unparalleled loathing. No one was really certain about what went on with Mixmaster, but he definitely hadn’t been this crazy in his original state.

Being reprogrammed had changed them all. And with that change, they lost their sense of self. Unlike the Stunticons, the Devastator gestalt team had first-hand experience to pull from; they understood things like context and nuance and personal consequences. But they had been put into stasis pretty soon after becoming Decepticons. And even before being reprogrammed, they had mostly stuck together, socializing within the Team, rather than with others. They had experience, but not with the faction they found themselves a part of. All in all, the mechs currently calling themselves the Constructicons probably had only a paltry amount of conscious vorns that they could have called “theirs” back on Cybertron after Megatron got a hold of them, added to a scant few years ( _local_ years, even) here on Earth.

Sure, they fit in well enough – they could be cruel, ruthless… They followed Megatron’s lead and did as they were ordered, and did their best to destroy the Autobots they were pitted against. The Constructicons functioned as mature mechs, not needing to have someone keeping tabs on them at all times just to make sure that they weren’t going to do something incredibly stupid, like experiment with putting unprocessed fossil fuels in their tanks. Unlike a certain other unnamed ground-pounding gestalt…

They had experience. Just not the kind of experience that mattered when dealing with the variety of sociopaths and nutjobs that were on board the _Victory._ And in this way, they were almost endearingly young. If you were into that kind of thing…

Vortex idly switched to another file, watching the footage of Scrapper and Long Haul interacting. He let the scene finish, watching at 3x speed, and moved onto the next one. It had taken quite a few favors to convince Reflector and the Cassette-Twins to hand over their combined collections of surveillance vids, even if only temporarily. They seemed to be of the opinion that he was going to render them un-viewable or something. Which was an amusing thought, but not one he would follow through on; he might want to view them again at a later date for some other reason, and they would find out if he merely stole them.

After sifting through several months-worth of footage, he’d come to some rather interesting conclusions. Perhaps the _most_ interesting was that the Constructicons were all very tactile. Not with anyone outside of the team, though. They had an almost phobic aversion to touch from anyone else. The only exception was Hook, and that was only because he was constantly having to put his hands _inside_ of people in order to fix them; other than that, he avoided physical contact just like the rest of his gestalt.

Within their little group, though, there was a _lot_ of touching. Little things, like bumping shoulders, or a casual hand on arm, or sitting so close to each other that knees and hips touched; as well as big things, like Hook petting Scavenger to the point of overload. The excavator got a lot of that sort of attention, it seemed. He wouldn’t have to say a word; he’d just go up to one of his teammates and rub against him for a moment, or curl up next to whoever was on the couch, and they’d pull him onto their laps to be petted and cuddled until his optics fritzed and his tail lashed. Mixmaster would even seek Scavenger out for this purpose, sometimes – he seemed to be the only one who paid attention to the fact that what they were doing was making the mech _overload_. He’d leer and murmur things, and Scavenger would make a few more sounds than he normally did – none of which were words – before he made that little mewling noise at the end. Sometimes, the chemist would work him up a second time.

Long Haul and Bonecrusher were the only ones who properly interfaced – at _all_. None of the other’s ever seemed to have any inclination whatsoever to removing their panels and fragging like petrorabbits. And even those two only did it rarely, and exclusively with each other.

All things considered, Vortex was beginning to wonder if he’d been the first to ever interface with Hook. Or, at the least, the first since he’d been turned into a Decepticon. Such a shame that he had no memories of that night; he hadn’t gotten hold of a virgin in a _long_ time – much less for a consensual endeavor. That would have been worth remembering. How _had_ he gotten the mech to agree to that, anyway? This had been bothering him for a while, now.

It couldn’t have just been the high grade. He’d found two other instances in the horde of vid-files of Hook getting drunk, and while he got more emotive, less controlled, it didn’t change his personality – and everything he knew about the mech said that he just did not interface. So why that night…?

“Are you _still_ obsessing over the medic?”

Vortex glanced up from the view-screen and grunted, gaze immediately flicking away from Brawl and back to the file currently playing.

“Hey, is that Mixmaster?” Brawl leaned in around his teammate’s shoulder, staring at the monitor. 

Vortex grunted again, and shoved at the mech to get his slagging head out of the way. “So what if it is?”

“Thought you were all about Hook, not… Oooh, I know what he’s doing.” There was a note of glee in the tank’s voice. “He’s makin’ high grade! How old is this? S’it recent? He makes the _best_.”

Vortex growled, slapping Brawl upside the head. “Stop blocking my view! I’m doing research!”

“What for?” One red visor turned towards another, somehow managing to look confused.

“Hook. I need to learn more about him. Don’t know enough just from interacting or from reading his files.”

“Oh.” He still looked confused. “Okay.” He looked back at the screen. “But that’s not Hook.”

“It’s his _gestaltmate_ , afthead.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

Vortex sighed. There was just no getting through to Brawl, sometimes. “Never mind. Just go… go bug Swindle or something.”

The tank snorted. “Fine. But Onslaught wants you in his office in two breems.”

 _Another_ sigh. “Why didn’t he just comm. me?”

Shrugging, the bulky mech exited.

Under most normal circumstances, going to see his commander usually led to Very Pleasant Things. But he was _busy_ , slaggit! Upping the playback speed to 4x, he finished the file and started looking for a specific date. He _had_ to know what had happened to get Hook out of his proverbial shell that night.


	7. Chapter 7

“Dare I ask what you did this time?”

Vortex moaned enthusiastically as his caved-in abdominal armor was peeled away. “Didn’… didn’t show to our last team meeting.”

“Ah.” Hook was already buried, knuckle-deep, in the helicopter’s insides. A few structural supports had been bent out of shape by the blow, and a large number of lines – fuel lines, hydraulic lines, coolant lines… – had ruptured under the pressure, leaking fluids all over the place. “Too busy, I suppose?”

“Could say that. I’ve had an ongoing, er, ‘project’ for the last orn or so.” That was a _lot_ of footage to go through, even while fast-forwarding, and technically he hadn’t watched all of it – he’d stopped after looking up that last clip.

“I had wondered why I hadn’t seen your smiling face around my medbay.”

“Miss me?”

“Like a bad case of rust rash.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet.”

“Hmph.” Hook closed off the tubes that were dripping all over his patient’s interior and began removing the parts that would need replacing.

There was a long pause, the sounds of repairs and Vortex’s pleasured moaning the only thing to break the silence. The interrogator let it drag on.

And then… “What was the project?”

Vortex mentally grinned, but kept his voice conversational. “Oh, just looking through some vid-files.” He paused to gasp as a sharp pang of pleasure-pain went straight to his interface panel. “See, I had this little gap in my memory banks, and I figured I could supplement them by seeing the events secondhand.”

“Mm. It took you that long to find the right ones?”

“Well, not really. I just kept finding interesting tidbits that were too much fun to pass up.”

“Ah, yes. I have run into that problem before.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed.” The medic snagged a cleaning tool to clear away the congealed goo at the back of Vortex’s carapace. “You go to look up one thing, but that leads to another snippet of information, and that to another, and then, before you realize it, you’ve spent the last three megacycles hooked up to the terminal, downloading facts that weren’t really relevant to the current project.”

“Hahaha – I guess you _have_ run into that problem before.”

“I would not have said so if it was not true.”

“Oh yeah – forgot about your little hang-up with honesty.” No, he hadn’t. Actually, he hadn’t known about it until he’d spent an entire orn - ten whole days - watching footage; but it had been mighty intriguing to find out that Hook never told an outright lie. He’d tweak the truth, sure, but that was just common sense when the mech you were talking to had a fusion cannon pointed at your head.

“I find your insinuation that my desire to be truthful is in any way inappropriate to be insulting.”

“Come on – you’re a _Decepti_ con. It’s in the _name_. We practically live off of falsehood.”

Hook snorted, tugged rather more forcefully than necessary on a neural relay, and didn’t quite manage to fight down the urge to smile when Vortex shivered hard, groaning and tugging at the restraints around his wrists.

“Mm, there you go with the positive reinforcement again.”

“Perhaps, but it shut you up for a moment, didn’t it?”

“Point taken.” It was hard not to get ahead of himself. He’d _seen_ that almost-smile.

“So, I presume that you eventually found that missing memory?”

“Yup. Gotta tell ya, it wasn’t what I was expecting at _all_.”

“Really? I thought that you always knew what was going on around base – what with being the oh-so-impressive interrogator and everything.”

Vortex wanted to swim in that sea of sarcasm – it made him feel tingly all over. So did the electric charge building wherever Hook’s fingers made contact. “I do, usually. I can take apart a mech’s mind and pinpoint behaviors to find weaknesses, but even I can’t predict actions down to minute details.”

“Mm. And just whose actions was it that you could not predict, this time? Since it was clearly so important to you, it must have been something quite dramatic.”

“They were yours.”

Hook stopped. He lifted his gaze from what he was doing, lips pressing together in a thin line.

Vortex could tell that he was trying not to frown, and almost let his engine growl in response.

“Mine.”

“Yup.”

“You said that you were looking up a memory gap.”

“Yup,” he repeated, anticipation building.

“So, the event you were finding footage for,” he failed to keep the frown from forming this time, the corners of his mouth tugging downwards minutely, “was the night that we… awoke together.”

The Combaticon loved that it wasn’t a question. Hook was stating conclusions as he came to them.

“You do not seem nearly upset enough.”

“Like I told you then: It’s either enjoy myself, or get angry. I like to enjoy myself.”

“Yes, but… _how?_ ”

“How, what?”

“How do you find… _this_ enjoyable? I mean, I…”

“You lied to me.”

Hook stiffened. “I most certainly did not.”

“Fine – you _mislead_ me. Even if it was blurry for you, you still remembered what happened.”

“Yes, I did. And you came to your own conclusions about what had happened the night prior. I simply…”

“You didn’t correct me.”

“Still…”

“I’d call that pretty misleading.”

“Still, I did not _lie_.”

“Okay, you didn’t lie. But that doesn’t answer the question of why, in the name of the Unmaker, you did not bother to tell me that we didn’t actually interface.” He’d already figured it out, but it would be far more fun to hear Hook say it out loud.

“Would it have stopped you? You seemed far more taken with the idea of my perceived, er, ‘kinkiness’ than the actual act of interfacing.”

“I wouldn’t have gone after you so hard. Would have taken it slower, knowing that we hadn’t already done it.” Hey, Vortex had no qualms about lying.

“Perhaps,” the medic reluctantly agreed. “But…”

“But what?” He wanted the mech to _say it_ , dammit!

“But I didn’t really…”

“Didn’t really _what?_ ”

The Constructicon’s mouth twisted into a funny shape. “I should be focusing on your repairs.”

“Oh, no you don’t. You are _not_ dodging the question! Answer me.” The suspense was killing him over here!

Hook’s optics flashed behind the visor, and he yanked on a motor relay, making the restrained mech’s leg jump painfully. “I did not _mind_. I did not mind that you were constantly harassing me, or getting yourself intentionally damaged just so that I would have to fix you, or making distractingly lewd remarks as I tried to concentrate. I did not mind.” All the tension, all the energy seemed to drain out of the medic with that last statement, and he extricated his hands so he could sit on the empty berth behind him. “Satisfied?”

Vortex nearly overloaded on the spot. His fingers twitched. “Not… not quite…”

The medic rolled his optics, stood back up, shoved his hand back inside of the open chest cavity and raked his fingers harshly across the helicopter’s spark chamber. He gave the mech a put-upon look as he overloaded. “Now?”

His mangled chest heaved as intakes pulled in cool air, electricity charging over every one of his circuits. “Mmmm~, yes… Very satisfied…”

“Good.”

“So…”

“So?”

“Wanna find out if you really are a valve mech?”

Hook scrubbed exasperatedly at his face with the palm of one hand, apparently not minding the smears of Vortex’s internal fluids that he was leaving behind.


	8. Chapter 8

So. They hadn’t interfaced.

Vortex had hardly been able to wrap his mind around this concept at first, he’d spent so long with the false assumption. The helicopter had ended up watching the same clip a second time to check for tampering before Onslaught came in, furious that the interrogator wasn’t even on his _way_ to his leader’s office.

But… He’d watched the footage. And that night, the night that started the whole thing… They hadn’t interfaced. It turned out that the whole thing was because he’d apparently gotten it into his drunken processors that he wanted a really fine pair of hands to play with his rotors that night, and whose hands were finer than a medic’s? Luckily, the high grade had come courtesy of Mixmaster, and he’d insisted that his gestaltmates try out the new brew. Hook had obligingly had a cube – well, half a cube, since he’d realized partway in just how strong it was – and had started off in a good enough mood that he was willing to deal with Vortex trailing after him through the hallways, trying to get him to ‘loosen up.’ Eventually, though, Hook started to get annoyed. He’d made it to his medbay and tried locking Vortex out, but even while inebriated the Combaticon was nigh-impossible to keep out of a room that he decided he needed to be in.

Hook really was a lot more emotive when overcharged. He’d gotten so upset at having his sanctuary broken into that he’d decided to make sure Vortex couldn’t keep pawing at him anymore. And apparently a drunk Hook was a vindictive Hook, but not necessarily a fully-processing Hook, which was _hilarious_. Instead of using the medical restraints at his disposal, he’d sat on Vortex while he performed surgery, pedes firmly planted on a pair of rotors, and did not appear to even register that the mech under him overloaded – three times – before he was done. Realizing that his captive was unconscious at that point, he’d simply dumped him on a berth and sat down, _glaring_ at the prone form. Then he spent the next half-megacycle ranting at the unconscious mech about invasions of personal space. Eventually, the high grade – and probably the unaccustomed emotional strain – caught up with him and he passed out, too.

Vortex copied the vid-file, saved a hard copy for safe-keeping, and downloaded a compressed version to keep permanently in his own memory banks. He wanted to remember that night forever, even secondhand.

Admittedly, it was something of a blow to his pride that he had let himself get fooled for so long by a mech that wouldn’t even _lie_ to him, but perhaps that’s why it had worked so well – since he hadn’t been lying, he hadn’t been putting off any of the usual tells. After all, it was easier to make a believable lie if it had partial truths in it. Plus, Vortex had been so excited at the prospect of finding out that he’d actually snagged the snobbish medic _and_ that he was delightfully creative in the berth, that he hadn’t thought about it too closely until much later, when he’d already ingrained it into his head that Sex Happened.

Regardless, he was happy with the way things turned out. The situation had ended to his favor, after all.

\-----

“Is that really necessary?” Hook asked.

“Probably.” A pause. “Which part are you referring to?”

“You are… hovering.”

“You’ve dealt with me hovering before.”

“Yes, but not while… I mean, I am…”

“Yes~?” Vortex leaned a little more heavily on the medic’s shoulder, peering over it to stare at what he was doing.

“Usually, you are doing so while I have a patient I am working on. Or… or while attending to a project.”

“Mhmm…” He stifled the urge to giggle at the medic’s discomfiture.

“I am not sure that I am… comfortable with you doing so while I am working on… myself.”

“Oh? That’s a shame. You have such nice circuitry.” He reached over and lightly ran his finger around the edge of the open panel on Hook’s forearm. It did not escape his notice that it caused the Constructicon to shiver, and it wasn’t one of disgust.

“Yes, well… Thank you. Nonetheless, it is, perhaps, more distracting than normal when I am my own patient.”

Confronting the medic about what had happened that night had led to gaining some very interesting ground. He was a little less defensive, a little less quick to storm out of the room, and… a lot less wary about Vortex’s intentions, which, while surprising, was far from unwelcome. “I was distracting at first with those things, too. You got used to it.”

Hook shifted in his seat. “I suppose that I did…”

“Won’t you get used to this, too? It’s just so fascinating to watch you work – you’re so _good_ at it.” Judicious flattery was a very easy way to calm Hook down – the mech had an ego the size of the Milky Way when it came to his job.

“Well… I suppose that you may continue to watch. So long as you _only_ watch.”

Vortex chuckled lightly and nodded his helm. He’d obey – for now.


	9. Chapter 9

Onslaught was in the medbay. This wouldn’t have been strange, except that he wasn’t hurt. Not even an injured teammate; not even _Vortex_ was in the medbay today, clinging to Hook like a shiny new toy.

Scrapper was decidedly weirded out. The Combaticon had come in, taken up post next to the door with his arms crossed, and simply started… watching. Specifically, he was watching Hook, who did not seem to notice. The two gestalt leaders were technically the same rank, and since he was just standing there, perfectly out of the way, he couldn’t order him out for being a distraction. Not that it had worked with Vortex, whom he _did_ outrank, but Hook kept insisting that he wasn’t bothered by the company.

It was, quite frankly, worrying. All this attention directed at his second, and he had no idea why… He knew that _something_ had happened a few months ago between his architect and the insane rotary mech. At least Hook had seemed mildly perturbed for a while, but then, just over a week ago… he abruptly wasn’t. In fact, now he seemed to enjoy the helicopter’s company. He wasn’t certain if Vortex himself realized it, but Scrapper knew – the entire gestalt had picked up on it.

It had gotten to the point where Scrapper had outright asked him what was going on – the grey mech wasn’t _Team_. The only answer he’d gotten out of the crane was that Vortex and he had come to an understanding, and that it was nothing to fuss about. This had perhaps worried him even more than the odd behavior – an understanding? An understanding about _what?_

But Hook wouldn’t explain any further, and it wasn’t actually interfering with his performance, so he wasn’t going to order the mech to come out with it. Sometimes the shovel-dozer wished that he was more like the other Decepticons, and that he didn’t worry so much about his teammates’ well-being; things would be much simpler if he just didn’t give a slag.

The end of the duty cycle grew near, and Onslaught still hadn’t budged. Hook had finally caught on that he was being watched, but apparently he’d gotten used to that sort of thing from Vortex being around so much. At least he didn’t seem to be enjoying it this time – just passively accepting.

Then the shift ended, and the missile truck walked over. He walked over to _Scrapper_. If he was going to talk to someone, the Constructicon figured it would have been to the mech he’d so keenly watched for half the day. He stood up straight and waited for the mech to reach him, though. 

“Something you need, Onslaught?” He put just a hint of an edge to his voice – not enough to sound openly hostile, but _just_ enough to let him know that he’d been noticed and his presence was not appreciated. “You could have simply set up an appointment.”

The missile truck tipped his head just a bit to one side. His arms were still crossed and his shoulders were back. Scrapper thought he looked arrogant – it was not an unattractive pose. “I thought it would be rather pointless. I had my own reasons for being here today.”

“I see. Just as long as you haven’t gotten it into your processors to start stalking my gestaltmate like your subordinate has been doing…”

“Actually, that was why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Do tell.” Scrapper tried to adopt his own cavalier posture – he did _not_ want this mech thinking he could walk all over him and his teammates – but he didn’t think he quite pulled it off. He might have to practice that, later. At least he didn’t have to worry about his facial expression.

“I am certain that you are aware that Vortex is insane. You may also have heard about his penchant for not taking ‘no’ for an answer about anything.” He paused expectantly, and Scrapper nodded in confirmation. “I came here today to try and discern why he has been so focused on Hook.”

“And… did you reach a conclusion?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Scrapper blinked. “No?”

“No.”

“And now you are speaking with me, because…?”

“I had hoped that you might give me some insight into the matter.”

“Ah. No.”

Onslaught’s chin tipped forwards, and his stance shifted a bit; he looked marginally more hostile.

“You are asking me to tell _you_ about _my_ team.” Behind the mask, he smirked, and the change was audible. “Isn’t that what your interrogator is for?”

One massive fist clenched, the same one that had sent a certain bleeding helicopter into Hook’s care a week ago.

“Onslaught, have you even tried asking Vortex about it? I’m serious.”

The fist relaxed, and the posture shifted again – confused uncertainty, maybe? “You propose… that I ask Vortex what he’s up to?”

“Well… yes.” Now Scrapper was the uncertain one. Isn’t that what leaders were supposed to do when their underlings were up to something? Perhaps he was taking his own gestalt for granted.

Onslaught started laughing. It wasn’t an outright, full-bodied laugh or anything so unsightly as that, but a low, controlled chuckle that made the mech’s chest shake just a little.

Yes, Scrapper was definitely taking his own gestalt for granted – he kept forgetting that all the other Decepticons, not just Vortex, were psychotic. “…Care to let me in on the joke?”

“Don’t you worry about it. If your teammate is anything like you, I am beginning to understand just what is keeping Vortex’s interest.” And with that troubling statement, he left.

Scrapper forcibly unlocked his joints and sat down. That had been… unsettling; and also a reminder of why his team did not associate with other mechs.


	10. Chapter 10

There had always been something about the Constructicons that caused a certain amount of… speculation among the other Decepticons. Okay, so it was less ‘speculation’ and more ‘idle gossip,’ but that was beside the matter.

See, the six mechs weren’t very pretty. And it wasn’t just that absurdly-bright green in their paintjobs, either. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t all have their attractive points – they all had _really_ nice alt-mode kibble, sticking out so enticingly and just asking to be played with, and… No, bad Vortex; you can fantasize about finding the sensitive parts of Hook’s crane-arm _later_. But yeah, kibble. Plus, there were the individual points, like Mixmaster’s face being fairly handsome, or Scavenger having the most _grabbable_ little waist, or Hook’s obscenely well-crafted hands…

But as a whole, they just weren’t that good-looking. They weren’t really ugly, either, though, which simply led to them being… invisible, in a manner of speaking – aside from the paintjobs. They were plain, and generally went unnoticed. And it made it all the easier for them to continue with their habit of not socializing outside the gestalt.

Except for one little incongruity with their plainness; this was the part causing the gossip. See, they were all extraordinarily well-kempt. And it wasn’t just that they kept themselves clean and tidy – they were _shiny_. Anytime they weren’t either in battle or working on a project, the Constructicons practically glowed. They always, always had the dents and dings knocked out, the scratches filled in, their paint fixed up, and a glossy wax covering the whole thing.

Vortex had figured out why pretty early on, and it had nothing to do with vanity – Hook was obsessive-compulsive. Now, the medic being a perfectionistic, inflexible jerk who paid way too much attention to detail was common knowledge among the Decepticons, but this went beyond that. Hook _needed_ things to be clean. Or, at least, the things that he perceived as ‘his’.

The Combaticon had been amused to learn that this didn’t just include the medbay or the crane’s own body, but extended to his whole gestalt. If they weren’t actively getting dirty, whether it be via battle or construction project or surgery, they needed to get clean and _fast_ or Hook would take matters into his own hands. He was even more amused when he found out that the collection of mechs that ‘belonged’ to Hook had extended to include Vortex, himself.

He blinked when he walked into the medbay to see the green and purple mech start _glaring_ at him.

“You are filthy.”

Vortex glanced down at his own frame. “Hrm? Oh, this. Yeah, that Autotard we picked up in the last skirmish is being kind of stubborn, and I- WOAH!” He was unprepared to suddenly find himself _pulled_ towards the room’s inbuilt washracks. “What’re you…? I mean, it’s only a little energon. I’m gonna go right back in there in a megacycle or so, anyway. I’ll clean up afterwards?”

“You will clean up _now_.”

This was where things started to click for the helicopter. “ _Oh_. Okay.”

Hook made an annoyed noise as he palmed the door open before shoving Vortex towards one of the spigots. Despite the fact that the helicopter was cooperating now, Hook had gone into full Do It Yourself mode and it was too late to do anything about it.

Not that Vortex _wanted_ to do anything about it.

“Turn around.”

The helicopter complied, facing the medic, and shuddered as Hook turned the solvent on, the hot spray engulfing his rotors. “Oooh, that’s…” That was _nice_. Most of the Decepticons didn’t get the luxury of washracks – they had to wipe down by hand or find somebody to do the job for them. This latter instance usually involved vigorous interfacing, whether it was before or after.

“Arms out to your sides. No moving.”

Vortex obeyed, but his optic band snapped back on – and when had he turned that off? – to the sensation of a soft cloth and careful hands rubbing across his shoulders and around the back of his neck. His intakes hitched at the smooth caresses moving progressively further down his chest. Oh, the medic was making it _hard_ to obey that ‘no moving’ command.

Hook left no armor-plate untouched, no seam uninvestigated, no joint uninvaded by tapered, cloth-covered fingers. And he didn’t stop when he reached Vortex’s hips, either.

The helicopter’s visor brightened considerably when Hook knelt for the task, face tantalizingly close to Vortex’s panel, as his skilled hands methodically wiped down every inch of the pelvic-plating, even going so far as to nudge the grey thighs further apart so he could get the seams to either side more thoroughly.

The whole situation was maddening, mostly because Hook was being so damned _clinical_ about it. He touched just long enough to make sure an area was spotless, and not a moment longer; his expression remained intently focused with not a hint of arousal, or even acknowledging the arousal he was causing; and worse, he’d already finished with Vortex’s pelvis. The medic was now rubbing down his thighs with utmost care. The rotary-mech was pretty sure he was going to melt, his internals felt so hot.

Then Hook pulled his left arm down – he hadn’t touched either of those yet – to start working around the fingers. And the medic _stayed on his knees_. Vortex almost spontaneously-combusted, looking down at the mech all but worshipping his hand. Each finger was individually seen to, the hand pulled close to Hook’s face so he could pay attention to what he was doing. He half expected the medic to suck each of those fingers into his mouth after he was done, glossa lazily repeating what had just been accomplished with soft cloth and solvent. But, of course, this was pure fantasy.

Hook stood up, moving from palm to wrist to forearm and further. He switched to the other arm, briefly caressing Vortex’s throat with the cloth as he passed, and worked his way down to the as-yet untouched right hand. Vortex was quite disappointed when the crane did not kneel again. It was made up for in full when, after wiping down his facemask, visor, and helm, Hook mech-handled him into facing the spray – apparently he was no longer giving verbal commands – and started on his back.

By all that was holy, the solvent that had been pattering at his rotors this whole time had _sensitized_ them; had sensitized what was _already_ the most sensitive part of his external anatomy. Apparently there was a god, because Vortex saw him when Hook used the cloth to firmly grip the base of one rotor and swiftly stroke out towards the tip, twisting his wrist when he reached it to wipe his thumb across the edge.

Vortex’s knees buckled and he fell forwards against the wall, optic band offline and a long burst of static coming from his vocalizer. When he could form coherent thoughts again, he was still against the wall, hands braced in front of him. But that wasn’t what was keeping him upright; Hook had moved in closer, one thigh slid between the helicopter’s, and was using his free hand to press against the mech’s rotor-hub, shoving him firmly against the wall.

“Well, that was interesting.”

He wasn’t given a chance to look behind him and check – his other rotors were each assaulted in quick succession – but Hook’s voice right there hadn’t sounded focused and clinical anymore. In fact, he’d sounded _amused_.

Vortex overloaded once more before he was released, the medic apparently satisfied with his level of cleanliness. The interrogator’s legs were so weak that he just sort of sank to the floor once Hook was no longer supporting him. He turned around slowly, every bit of him quivering, and looked up.

Yup. Definitely amused. “Hurry up. Let’s get you dried off so I can give you a proper waxing.”

Oh, Primus – they weren’t done? “But I’m… I’m going back to work after I leave here and…” And why was he _complaining?_ Sure, he was just gonna get messy again, but then he could come back here afterwards, and ‘accidentally’ be covered in fluids again, and… And then they could start all over and ohPrimushelphim…

Hook tilted his head questioningly, waiting for the mech to finish.

Vortex shook his own in return and clambered back up to his pedes. “Never mind. Wax, you say? Sounds good.” He was gonna be in no shape at _all_ to interrogate, but somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to care.


	11. Chapter 11

This was the second time that their relationship dynamic had shifted. Something about the thing in the washracks had changed how Hook looked at him, and he was having trouble pinning down exactly _what_. It wasn’t just the overload, because Vortex had done that plenty of times before while in the medic’s care. The only real difference had been that…

Well, it couldn’t _really_ have just been that he hadn’t been injured, could it? That answer just didn’t sit right. Hook had overloaded Scavenger with nothing but gentle stroking and he didn’t give his gestaltmate that look… That look that Vortex couldn’t identify. He _hated_ not being able to identify it. It wasn’t a negative emotion, he knew that much. And it wasn’t lust, or amusement, or even affection. Although, he was fairly certain that there might have been elements of one or more of those mixed in with it. It had definitely been amusement immediately following the incident, but the expression had gone through a metamorphosis by the next time Vortex wandered into the medbay.

He had, of course, made sure to be covered in vital fluids not belonging to him again. As predicted, he got another visit to the washracks, followed by multiple overloads, an all-over waxing (more thorough than the first one, as Hook had, it turned out, realized that he was going to end up doing it again that same day), and having to stand perfectly still for half a megacycle or risk having to go through it all over again. And at that point, it _was_ a risk. He was freakin’ exhausted – even he, sexual adventurist that he was, got tired by the point of five overloads in such a short span of time. Five _powerful_ , tactile-only overloads; he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a tactile overload that didn’t involve severe bodily harm.

To think, not once had he even opened his interface panel. Idly, he entertained the idea of opening it next time he got Hook to wash him, just to see what he would do.

Regardless, all the while he’d been standing still as a statue with his arms held away from his sides, Hook had sat there and _looked_ at him. Not ogled, not glared, not inspected… Just _looked_ at him with a funny little almost-smile. They’d talked while he was standing there – idle chatter – but the strange expression had persisted, and it had been slowly driving him insane, right up until Hook gave him the go-ahead to move around. 

Damn it all, he needed Hook to take off that visor – it would be far easier to identify the meaning behind that look if he could see his optics. Well, that or get him drunk – he was so much more expressive, showed more body language and had more feeling in his voice, when he’d been drinking high grade. Not that getting him to overcharge again would be easy… But it would still probably be easier than convincing him to take off the damned visor.

Hm. Perhaps a discussion with Mixmaster was in order. But first, he had business to attend to. Amusingly enough, he’d found out last time that walking into his captive's room while looking pristine and shiny, coupled with a rather blissed-out attitude, worked wonders for unsettling someone you had, not more than a megacycle prior, spent a good amount of time working laser scalpels into the sensitive body-parts of. While that had been funny, he really did need to do some actual work during this round. He flicked his rotors as he entered the room, cheerily waving at Cosmos’ stricken expression.


	12. Chapter 12

“Wanna get drunk?”

Hook tilted his head a bit, thought about it, and nodded. “Alright.”

He could not believe it had been that easy. Vortex could _not_ believe it had been that easy. Hook never would have said ‘yes’ that easily a few months ago. He figured he’d have to do some further wheedling or _something_ , but… apparently not. He’d made more progress with the mech than he’d realized. “Er. Awesome! Think we can convince Mixxy to…?”

“No need. He always saves a little from his last batch. I will ask him to part with what we require, and he will agree.”

This was going _way_ too well. Something was bound to go horribly, terribly wrong at this rate. Then again, that just added to the excitement. “So, uh, tonight? After duty cycle and all that? Was thinking we could go to my quarters and-”

“No. Here, in the medbay.”

Hrm. Hook’s expression had gone from passively amused to slightly nervous. “Hey, no worries. Just thought you might want a little privacy, instead of risking somebody walkin’ in here while we’re busy gettin’ smashed.” Vortex mentally grinned when he saw the medic’s face turn thoughtful. He was _considering_ it, and that meant a lot, even if he said ‘no’ again.

“Well…”

The interrogator decided to push. “It’s not like we don’t already know you can handle me while I’m drunk.” Never mind that Vortex had no intentions of getting that thoroughly plastered this time – he would let himself get a light buzz, but the rest would be acting. He had a mission to accomplish and a mystery to unravel.

Hook was looking at him suspiciously, but after a moment he sighed and nodded. “Very well.”

“Great! See you in a few megs.”

\-----

As it turned out, ‘a few megs’ turned out to be ‘the next day’. There’d been a prison break right before end-of-shift, and Cosmos got rescued. Well, what was left of Cosmos got rescued… Either way, Vortex was feeling rather vindicated about his earlier pessimism – it was so nice to be proven right, even if it did delay his plans with Hook.

Speaking of the medic, he had that funny look on his face again. It wasn’t _quite_ the end of the duty cycle, but Vortex suddenly found himself with free time again, so he was waiting in the medbay for Hook to get done. And the rotary was mighty confused, because Hook wasn’t looking at _him_ while wearing that look. Every other time that expression had popped up, the Constructicon had been looking directly at Vortex. This time, he was wearing it while looking at his blueprints.

It soon became clear to the helicopter, though, that Hook’s processors were not on his work – which was just outright _weird_. His stylus had been moving rather slowly before stopping altogether. And then Scavenger walked in, just passing through, and Hook turned that look on _him_.

Just before the helicopter could start questioning if he’d been wrong about his ‘no injuries’ theory, the look got an edge to it, and Vortex suddenly understood. The edge was curiosity; the look itself was _wonder_.

He’d finally cracked through the apathy. Hook was starting to think about the reactions he was causing in other mechs.

Tonight was gonna be _fun_.


	13. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [dem_legs_fan](http://dem-legs-fan.livejournal.com/), over on LJ. <3

A scream pierced the darkness. There were other sounds, wicked sounds, of laughter and delight and sharpened metal. Nothing existed outside the electricity that crackled, and claws that tore, and the terrible red visor that flashed in the gloom. The pinnacle was reached, the point where pain no longer worsened, but only continued… continued forever.

He would have told. It ashamed and burned him, but at that point he would have told him anything, everything, to make it stop. He wasn’t permitted the chance. The narrow strip of flashing crimson told him that what he knew wasn’t important. Nothing about him was important. He was filth, refuse; he deserved the pain.

And then there was light. The agony did not cease, but the darkness parted. The flashing crimson was gone, replaced by cool blue, surrounded in shining white. He had gone to Primus, but why did it still hurt? Everything hurt. Everything…

But then it didn’t. The darkness came back, but there was blessed oblivion. Not recharge – no, recharge did not stop the pain. Unconsciousness only let the nightmare take new shapes. This was a gentle void, only barely aware. It caressed and held him. He did not wish to leave, ever.

\-----

Skyfire quivered faintly, wings rattling behind him. In his hand, he held the smaller one belonging to Cosmos. The minibot looked so very tiny next to him, so fragile.

Ratchet didn’t have the spark to tell him to go get some rest. Cosmos had been repaired and sedated after the ordeal, and as soon as he was stable, Skyfire had just sat down next to the operating table and… held him.

He was worried. Ratchet was so very worried. Not just for Cosmos, who had just been rescued from the Pit itself, but… for Skyfire. Skyfire, whose wings did not quiver with fear or sadness or sparkache. No, the great white expanses were shaking in rage, the mech’s face a barely-constrained mask of horror and loathing.

The medic frowned and went back to work. He did not envy the Decepticons - almost pitied Vortex - the next time there was a battle. There would be hell to pay.


	14. Chapter 14

Tap… tap… tap-tap… tap… tap-tap-tap…

zzzzzzzzzZZZZZTT!

“Ow!” Wincing, Scrapper shook out his hand, annoyed at the shock he’d just received from a circuit that was _supposedly_ insulated. Frustrated beyond words, he sighed and started to disentangle himself from the forest of wires and cables surrounding his upper body.

He was halfway inside of the latest project his team had been working on, as he had needed to tweak a few things that were, unfortunately, rather hard to reach. Maybe he should have listened to Hook’s complaining about the size and bulk of the thing, if only so that getting to the innards would have been easier.

The shovel-dozer froze, _almost_ free, when he felt a touch against his pede. It had only been for a moment, and it had been very light, but somebody was next to him. He just couldn’t _see_ , because there were thick panels and a jungle of circuitry in the way. He hoped it wasn’t Vortex, because if it was… he just wasn’t going to be able to deal with that right now. Huffing at the intrusion, he shuffled a little further out, paused again when he found out that he was still more tangled than he’d thought, and called out.

“Whoever’s out there, you better be dying, because I am _not_ in the mood to deal with- OOF!” His abdominal cavity abruptly compressed as somebody – somebody _big_ – stepped on his midsection. It hadn’t been a stomp, he hadn’t been damaged, but it wasn’t comfortable and he couldn’t continue pulling himself out of the machine.

“I’m sorry, what was that? I could have sworn that I heard someone being very rude just now.”

Ah, slag. That was Onslaught out there. Tensing, he tried to bring a leg up and kick, but the angle was wrong, and he only hit air. “You will remove your pede from my person this _instant_ , Onslaught, or so help me, I will remove _all_ of your limbs myself. And then put them somewhere very high up.”

That deep, rumbling laugh was back. “Well, that’s an amusing threat. Especially coming from someone who can’t move; wouldn’t want to break Megatron’s new toy, now, would you?”

A low growl started up in the back of Scrapper’s vocalizer before he noticed and shut it off. He took a deep intake, then another, and calmed himself down. “And I do not believe that _you_ would like to be responsible for causing a delay in its being finished. I am working, or are you too thick to notice?”

The Combaticon chuckled again. “Oh, I noticed. I merely felt that you should be punished for being so impolite. Really, making threats without even knowing who was out here? What if I had been Megatron? He would have shot you for that. You should be grateful that I am letting you off with a warning.”

Scrapper worked a hand free and shoved blindly at the pede. It didn’t even budge. “If you had been _Megatron_ , you would not have waited for me to notice you.” Their lord and master tended to make himself known rather loudly and obnoxiously upon entering.

“And so you decided to reward patience with pique?” Onslaught made a tutting sound, and Scrapper was sure there was a finger wagging at him in reproach.

Annoyingly enough, he couldn’t think of a comeback for that one right away. He wasn’t given the chance to when the pede lifted and was replaced with… Oh, Primus, was Onslaught _sitting_ on him? “What… what are you…?”

“Now remember – hold still. Wouldn’t want to accidentally yank those cables free or you really _will_ set yourself back.”

“Get _off_ of me, you deranged lunatic!”

“Hmm, I think you are mistaking me for Vortex. I’m the sane one, remember?”

“Could have fooled me,” Scrapper grumbled quietly, wiggling a bit. This was even less comfortable than the pede in his gut. He huffed again and resumed speaking. “Is there a _reason_ you have graced me with your presence, or are you going to make me guess?”

“Tempting… but no. I actually came here to let you know where Hook was seen going. But I suppose you don’t want to hear the ravings of a deranged lunatic?”

The engineer paused. “Hook was… leaving. He left with Vortex. Right after the shift ended.”

“Oh, so you _did_ know! My apologies.”

Onslaught sounded so very smug, and Scrapper wanted so very badly to be able to punch him right in the faceplate for it. “Was that _all?_ ”

“Mm, there was also the fact that they were headed towards Vortex’s personal quarters, but… I guess that does not matter to you.”

“I…” Well, he hadn’t actually known _where_ they were going. He’d not put any real thought into it. “…Should it?” Scrapper hated how uncertain he sounded.

And there went the chuckle again, only this time it vibrated through the green and purple mech’s own frame, rattling his circuits and making him feel tingly. “Only if you think that fraternization between gestalts is a bad thing. Do you?”

Scrapper thought about it. “You propose… that they will be intimate?”

“That would be the polite way of putting it.” _Damn_ , but the bastard was smug.

“Then unless you feel your subordinate would force himself upon my teammate, there will be no cause for alarm. Hook does not _do_ intimate.”

“And I don’t think that you have been paying close enough attention. Vortex is very good at getting what he wants, and he knows that he would be punished beyond even _his_ capacity for enjoyment if he were to… cause injury to someone as valuable to the Decepticon cause as Hook is.”

Scrapper was starting to feel nervous. All this time that Vortex had been hanging around... What had he been doing to his gestaltmate? “But he… Hook is…”

A large, _large_ , hand was placed on his chest, right before the mech it belonged to pushed himself up and off of the prone engineer. “If you think that Hook is immune to Vortex’s manipulations simply because he is _intelligent_ , you are sorely mistaken.”

Scrapper finally disentangled himself and slid out of the machine. He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck – he had a crick from having been forced to lie atop his shovel for so long. Knowing full well that he looked rather pathetic, he looked up at the other mech from where he sat. Onslaught loomed above, large and imposing and… dreadfully alluring.

“Poor little Constructicon. You don’t even realize that you’ve already lost him.”


	15. Chapter 15

Optics a bit glazed already, Hook stared down into his half-empty cube. Lazily, he rotated his wrist, swishing the contents and watching the pink swirl ‘round and ‘round and ‘round, glittering in the light. It was rather pretty, pure energon. Processed energon was pretty, too, though different in color; more purple than pink, darker and thicker and much more sticky.

“Ya gonna watch your cube all night, or drink it?”

Hook looked up and smirked. “Can’t I do both?” His gaze drifted over to the helicopter’s own cube, a fuel-intake line from the mech’s arm trailing into it. He wondered, idly, if that was a personal choice or if Vortex was one of those models that had no mouth under the mask. As his medic, he should really know these things… But it occurred to him that he’d never actually had to repair that area on the rotary before. Maybe Scrapper knew the answer.

Vortex giggled and got up off of the berth, leaving his almost-empty cube behind. Hook was fairly certain that most, if not all, of the high grade had ended up in the interrogator’s reserve tank. It would cause a sudden overcharge later on, probably at an inopportune time, if Vortex did not closely monitor his energy levels. But it would leave the helicopter in control of his processors for the here and now.

He did not mind the deception; Hook had agreed to this knowing full well what his intentions were. The rotary had stopped blatantly asking him to interface for quite some time now, but that didn’t mean Vortex had changed his mind about it. That was alright – Hook hadn’t changed his mind, either.

The grey mech slunk around behind the crane’s seat and hoisted himself up on the desk. “That depends… Can I watch with you?” He asked this question while leaning forwards to drape himself across the green expanse of back-plating, facemask pressed up against his audio. It tingled.

Deciding to ignore the question, he smirked and asked one of his own. “You really like hanging off of my shoulders, don’t you?”

“Mm, they’re _com’fy_ shoulders.” Vortex nuzzled the one his chin was resting on, as if to prove a point.

Chuckling, Hook took another swig, delighting in the sweet taste and slight burn down his throat. A comfortable warmth settled in his tanks, and he sighed in contentment. It was rather pleasant, the clouding over of his mind, but he still did not think he would do this very often – he liked being in control of himself; the walls he’d built up around his mind, the inhibitions, they were there for a reason after all.

Vortex nuzzled again, this time against the Constructicon’s neck. “ _All_ of you’s com’fy…”

Hook chuckled once more and turned to look at what passed for the grey mech’s face. “Indeed? I never would have guessed, the way you paw all over me.”

Sharp fingers, almost talons, took that as their cue to delicately wander over his plating, skating across his upper chest and arms. “S’too tempting to _not_ …”

The medic wondered if the slurring of speech, the thickness to the words, was part of the act or if Vortex really had let himself get just a _little_ drunk. Either way, the barely-there touches were… distracting, if not unpleasant. He shifted a bit, taking another small swallow of his high grade. “Why is that? I’ve wondered…”

“Mm?” Vortex was nuzzling him again, this time at his throat, and Hook had to fight not to tip his head back and expose more of it.

“It’s just that… It cannot simply have been that one night, for you to have chased after me for so long.” This was something he hadn’t been able to figure out. He knew why it had started, just not why the Combaticon had seemingly become so… obsessed over the idea. From what he knew of most mechs, they generally chased others in the pursuit of pleasure. But Vortex already got that pleasure – rather _frequently_ – even without them having actually interfaced. It wasn’t just overloads that the mech was after, so what was it?

The rotary giggled, the sharp angle of his facemask pressed against Hook’s audio and making it buzz pleasantly. “You’re _fun_. Why wouldn’t I chase you?”

That made him pause. “I am… fun.”

“Mhmm…” More nuzzling, and the almost-claws were wandering lower down his chest. One hand started to creep off to the side, teasing at a transformation seam. Hook held himself very still as the tickling sensations grew more intense – it was getting rather difficult to continue not reacting.

“And how, exactly, am I fun?” He had been called many things, but that was not one of them. 

“Well,” Vortex started, “for one thing, you know just how to get my motor running.”

That much was obvious. “And…?”

“And,” the helicopter purred and moved around to Hook’s front, plopping himself down to straddle the medic’s thighs, “you are _very_ smart.”

For once, he did not deign to shove the ‘copter off. He gave the mech an incredulous, if somewhat amused, look. “You claim to be attracted to my intelligence?”

“ _And_ ,” he slipped his fingers up to the back of Hook’s neck, lightly tracing the wires and cabling leading into the back of the medic’s helm. The Constructicon couldn’t stop the slight parting of his lips or the tiny, nearly inaudible sound that escaped through them. “And you’re just so… so…” Vortex scooted forwards a little and ground their pelvises together. Hook’s optics dimmed at the rough contact, helm tipping backwards. “You’re so _tempting_.”

That wasn’t really an answer at all, so far as he was concerned; it was a restatement of what had caused the question in the first place. However, he was beginning to care less and less. This _did_ feel quite nice. Against his better judgment, his hands came up to lightly grasp Vortex’s hips. “And so, because of those things… you desire me?”

“Mm, please… Just… open up… Whichever position you like; any way you want it…” He was shamelessly grinding against him, now, and Hook’s hands on his hips made no move to stop him.

“You are… incorrigible.”

“And you like me that way.”

Hook smirked. He did, actually. He liked Vortex. The helicopter was a lying, manipulative, perpetually horny, sadomasochistic lunatic, and Hook enjoyed every moment of his company. He wasn’t going to admit to it, though. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Vortex threw his helm back and laughed, and Hook was tempted to believe that it was genuine. The laughter stopped and the red optic band flashed. One hand stayed up by Hook’s neck, continuing to toy with the cabling there, but its partner trailed slowly lower, tracing angles and seams and the flat planes of armor until it reached Hook’s codpiece. One sharp almost-claw tapped significantly against the interface panel. “Open up.”

The medic shook his head. “No.” It was half-playful, half-serious. He really didn’t intend to interface with the mech. Probably ever.

Vortex somehow pouted without a mouth, and tapped again. “Please?” The rotors behind the mech fluttered agitatedly. “We can do it any way you wanna,” he repeated.

Hook pretended to consider it. “Hm… No.”

The helicopter growled and tightened his grip around one of Hook’s neck cables, almost painfully. “Why not?!”

“Temper, Vortex.” Despite the threat to his well-being, he was still smirking. “I simply don’t want to interface. I’ll give you an overload, though, if that’s what you want.” He knew it wasn’t. It didn’t matter that he knew it wasn’t what Vortex wanted – it was all that the helicopter was going to get.

Forcibly relaxing his hand, the rotary mech let out a low growl. “I _want_ your spike inside me. Or mine in you, I don’t care. Just…”

Hook smiled, and it was not a very nice smile. He stood, but did not let the helicopter fall as he had numerous times in the past. Holding the mech up by the hips, he was gratified to note that he’d startled the interrogator, who was now clinging to him, automatically having wrapped his legs around Hook’s waist.

“Hey… Are you…?”

“Hold still.” Hook took the three-or-so steps to the berth, and sat Vortex down. He then proceeded to kneel down in front of him, hands still placed on the helicopter’s middle. “You might have to give me some pointers; I’ve never done this before.”

Vortex stared, apparently dumbstruck, as Hook manually opened the grey mech’s interface panel and teased a finger around the rim of spike array. In no time flat, the hardware had extended, looking more than ready.

Hook tipped his helm from side to side, inspecting it, before shrugging and leaning forwards to wrap his mouth around the tip. Vortex’s fingers immediately dug into his shoulders, a choked sound escaping him. Hook gave a small suck, then pulled back off and made a show of licking his lips. “Hm. Interesting flavor.” And then he dove back on, taking in half the length before pulling back – not all the way this time – and plunging back down to take a bit more.

“Y-you…” Vortex’s voice was still shell-shocked, but sounded thrilled at the same time. It was a very entertaining combination and Hook liked that he was able to cause such a reaction in the mech.

This was new to him, enjoying a reaction he’d caused. He never used to pay any attention to it. But that first time in the washracks… Vortex had simply been so _pretty_ and so _helpless_. The mech was totally out of his mind with the experience, and something about that had thrilled Hook to the core. He wondered, a little, if he could cause that sort of reaction in others.

“Hnnng… Ah…” Vortex was clawing at him again, and not being very delicate about it.

Hook decided that he didn’t mind and increased his pace, bobbing up and down. He experimented a bit, rolling his glossa around or stroking it along the shaft. He also tried a few variations of how much suction was applied, and turned his head at different angles while trying to get a bit deeper. Hook didn’t like that he couldn’t go all the way down without gagging, but found a remedy for this by gripping the base of Vortex’s spike and pumping in time with his mouth. It took a while, but as soon as he found the right combination that made Vortex thrash and shake and moan, almost trying to pull away from the intense sensations, he stopped deviating and kept it up.

After that, it seemed like no time at all before fluid filled his mouth and Hook pulled away. He immediately made a face. “Uh… _ugh_.” That tasted _disgusting_.

Vortex, collapsed backwards on his rotors and looking sated, had the nerve to laugh at him as he spat it out and gagged.


	16. Chapter 16

The medbay was quiet. No patients, no warlords thundering about a project not being completed fast enough, no seekers screeching to have their paintjobs touched up, no anything.

Vortex was dreadfully tempted to start bellowing out the most _filthy_ old drinking song he could remember the words to. However, Hook had made him promise to behave ‘like a good little psychopath’ until he was done with… whatever he was doing, and as a reward they could go back to Vortex’s quarters and have a repeat of the event last week.

Minus the high grade, though, because Hook was back to being difficult about that again. Well, that and the fact that rations were being cut down thanks to their last raid going rather badly – that Skyfire guy, who was _supposedly_ a pacifist, suddenly went off the deep end for some reason – and Mixmaster wasn’t allowed to synthesize what energon they still had in storage just so that the army could get drunk off their afts. But mostly it was just Hook being difficult.

So, no singing. No dancing or pretending that Hook’s carefully organized medical tools were musical instruments, either. Even though some of them made very entertaining noises…

But, yeah: Vortex was stuck sitting on a medical berth, swinging his pedes back and forth above the floor, and… reading. From an actual datapad, no less, since Hook was plugged into the only jack on this side of the room, and Vortex refused to be on the side of the room that didn’t have Hook on it. Plus, ya know, Scrapper was over there; not that he would normally have a problem with that, but Scrapper had well and truly decided that he _hated_ him, and that just tempted Vortex to do all sorts of things that would no doubt make Hook decide that he didn’t deserve the blowjob that he really, really wanted.

… _Really_ wanted. Hook was a quick learner. Despite having stated that the Combaticon should give him pointers, no verbal input had been required – just whatever incoherent sounds had helplessly spilled from Vortex’s vocalizer along with the ridiculous amount of writhing he’d done. Granted, Hook was still going to have to learn the art of ‘teasing’ – he had the habit of just driving Vortex headlong towards his overload, which was nice and all but got kind of boring after a while. And he also needed to learn not to spit; it was funny as all frag, but not very sexy.

Vortex definitely looked forward to teaching him those things and more. Even if it hadn’t been according to plan, he couldn’t say that last week’s little affair had been anything but successful. It was yet another step forward in the ongoing game of Corrupt the Medic, and the medic was playing _back_. Vortex couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun, and they’d been at it for nearly half a local year, now.

The Combaticon’s gaze drifted up from the datapad’s screen, not that he’d really been doing much reading, and he caught Scrapper glaring at him – and he could tell that he was glaring, even with the visor. The interrogator made it a point to stare right back at him, giggle in the high-pitched manner that perpetuated the belief that he was deeply unhinged, and wave with his free hand.

It was very gratifying, the way Scrapper’s body language gave away just how much he wanted to throttle the helicopter, but was holding himself back. Vortex wondered how long it would be before he snapped… Love of his teammate would only go so far, and Scrapper was eventually going to try to kill him. That was gonna be a pretty fun day, and he found himself looking forward to it.

Glancing quickly at Hook, who was staring blankly at a wall again, and then back at the medic’s leader, Vortex decided that maybe that day was today, even if it cost him his fellatio. He set down the datapad. 

Looking directly at the shovel-dozer, he pointed at his own chest with two fingers from his right hand before holding them up in front of him. Then he held up his left hand, pointed briefly in Scrapper’s direction, and curled his fingers and thumb together to form a circle. Then he proceeded to rapidly thrust the fingers of his right hand into the circle of the left.

Scrapper practically looked like he was going to go into convulsions, he was twitching so badly. It was almost a surprise that his processors didn’t start smoking from the effort of not doing something violent.

Vortex’s visor flashed, and he held his left hand up to his facemask, approximating where a mouth would be. He then repeated the thrusting motion with his other fingers.

He probably should have expected the sudden blast of laser-fire that caught him in the chest, but he honestly hadn’t known that Scrapper could draw his weapon that fast, let alone do so while aiming with such accuracy. As soon as he woke up, assuming he lived, the first thing Vortex was going to do was update the mech’s psychological profile to include ‘performs admirably well under emotional duress.’


	17. Chapter 17

Onslaught considered the little blinking icon on his HUD. On the one hand, the non-verbal transmission was stamped with an emergency-level medical indicator. On the other hand, he knew that Vortex had been in the medbay for the last two megacycles, hanging off of Hook like a space barnacle. He _should_ read the message because of the indicator. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to because he was certain that it had to do with Vortex.

The leader of the Combaticons drummed his fingers against his desk, contemplating this most difficult of decisions. With a sigh, duty won out over common sense, and he opened the file.

He read it. When he was done, he read it again. Then, with no witnesses and in the safety of his own office, he laughed – loudly.

\-----

Standing by the door and remaining as-of-yet unnoticed, Onslaught watched as Scrapper threw his hands into the air out of frustration. The shovel-dozer was just outside the medbay’s washracks, pacing rather agitatedly in a small circle. It was surprising how much he gestured, how emotional he got, when he thought no one was looking.

Onslaught could hear the shower running, and he felt it was safe to assume that Hook was in there, washing up post-surgery. Vortex’s unconscious body was over on a berth, attached to a few machines that were probably monitoring his vitals. Scrapper was still pacing, still gesticulating wildly, and…

You know, he was beginning to suspect that the two green and purple mechs were having a conversation. The Constructicons were really the only one of the gestalts that made frequent use of their bond – apparently, if no one else was around, they didn’t even bother speaking out loud.

“Yer blockin’ the door.”

The Combaticon very nearly jumped at the gruff voice behind him, but managed to keep it under control and step aside as a muddy-looking Bonecrusher came in. So much for construction vehicles being loud…

Scrapper looked over, seeming startled, and nodded a greeting at his teammate, who waved and went past him into the washracks. Then he stared at Onslaught for a moment before straightening his posture and walking over. “I didn’t hear you come in. Again.” There was something of an accusation in that tone; the missile truck found it amusing.

“You seemed to be… busy. I did not wish to interrupt.” He looked over at Vortex. “So… a weapon malfunction? Did I read that report right?” Onslaught let the disbelief color his voice and calmly walked over to the still slightly-charred form.

“Er… Uh, yes. My pistol… misfired.”

“I see. Your pistol has very good aim.”

Scrapper fidgeted uncomfortably. The mech tried so hard to show an unruffled, calm exterior; and he was so very, very bad at it.

“How long will he be out of commission?”

“The blast did not penetrate his armor, but it was a direct concussive shock right above his spark chamber and a number of vital lines came loose with the impact. He’s out of danger now, of course, but he’ll likely be unconscious for most of the day while his spark restabilizes itself.”

Hook strode over, looking rather damp. “Off-duty for the first day after awakening, and recommended light duty for the following orn.”

Onslaught stared for a moment. The medic looked downright _pissy_ , his lips drawn into a tight frown and his demeanor positively radiating irritation. Oh, Scrapper was in _trouble~_ … 

The Constructicon leader turned his head to give his teammate a _look_ , and Hook’s expression merely got even more sour. “I hardly think that he would need that long to recover.”

“Vortex needs that long if I say he needs that long. I will _not_ have him collapsing while out on patrol and crashing into the ocean just because-”

“Oh, come off it. The only real issue was the brief period of lost spark pulse and you got him stabilized after the first breem with very little effort. He’ll be fine after a couple of days.”

“Says the mech who I am fairly certain would not mind in the slightest if he were to offline permanently. In fact, you would enjoy that very much, I think.”

“It’s not like we wouldn’t be better off without him. You would benefit most of all.”

“ _Hardly_. You simply cannot accept that I am spending time with someone outside of the Team.”

Onslaught’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two as they continued to bicker, the conversation steering further and further away from Vortex’s medical condition and more towards outright insults. This was… far from what he had been expecting from two of the most serious, work-oriented mechs on base. It was also pretty damn funny so he didn’t interrupt, hoping that he would just melt into the background.

It continued for a good ten cycles or so, with the volume of the argument increasing steadily, until a freshly-cleaned Bonecrusher calmly walked up behind them both, smacked the pair each in the back of the helm – which earned him a yell of indignation in stereo – and told them to get a room.

Scrapper spluttered. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

“You ‘eard what I said. Get – a – room. Fer one, yer gonna disturb da patient. Fer another, ya got an audience. Fer _another_ , yer givin’ me a processor-ache the size of Primus’ aft. So either quit squabblin’ like a couple’a newbuilds that don’t know how ta get along, or do what me an’ Haul do when we get mad and go ‘face each other into a wall or somethin’.”

All three mechs turned to stare at him as Onslaught made a rather undignified snorting sound. The missile truck immediately muttered a very tight-sounding ‘excuse me,’ and left the medbay, trying not to look like he was fleeing.

\-----

Hook tilted his head. //Was he just…?//

//Laughing at us? Yeah.// Bonecrusher sounded wryly amused about that.

Scrapper just stared after the retreating form.


	18. Chapter 18

Vortex groaned. His head ached, his arms ached, his legs ached… His chest _really_ ached… In short, he hurt. Also, he didn’t mind. The helicopter might have preferred sharp stabs of agony or slow, grating anguish, but sensation was sensation to Vortex, and any sensation was better than nothing.

Pain reminded you that you were alive; that there was a vibrant, exciting, beautiful world around you, just waiting to be twisted into a nightmare of your own making. Vortex loved making nightmares, as long as they were for other people. If nothing else, they were a great way to pass the time.

Speaking of passing the time… How long had he been out? The Combaticon vaguely recalled getting Scrapper all riled up and… and… oh. Oh, yeah… Hahaha, that had been _awesome_.

Apparently he’d survived, too. Bonus! Now, where was Hook? He needed to find out if the medic considered that event to be _his_ fault or Scrapper’s. It would mean the difference between getting head and not getting head, and therefore of top priority.

Except… 

“…Uh. Hi?”

Scavenger waved at him. “Hullo~!”

Damn. That mech was so freaking cheerful it was almost scary. Scavenger had one of the lowest self-esteems out of every single functioning Decepticon – how did he do that _and_ act like the world was made of rainbows and petrobunnies?

“Have a nice nap?” The excavator was seated on the next med-berth over, legs pulled up and pretzeled beneath himself, and his tail swishing lazily behind.

“Um. Yes. Yes, I did.” Best to just go along with it; messing with the little frag-tard would only make Hook angry at him, and he first needed to know if the crane was _already_ mad at him. “Are you supposed to be watching me?”

“Mhmm! Hook said to let him know if you woke up or if your vitals dropped.”

“Oh. Have you told him, then?”

“Not yet. He’s busy. I’ll tell him as soon as he disconnects.”

Oh, Hook must be plugged into a wall again. That mech needed some new hobbies – information browsing was _not_ the only thing to do around the _Victory._ “Why isn’t he in here?”

“I think he just wanted to give me something to do. He’s so nice.”

“Uh-huh… Look, uh, how ‘bout I just go see him, myself? I’ll let him know that I’m awake, and then you won’t have to.”

“Nope! You’re not supposed to get up. Hook wants to check you over before you move.”

“Oh.” It was tempting to just do it anyway. But he had the feeling that the tailed mech would probably do something stupid, like tackle him, if he tried. Getting tackled by Scavenger would just be _embarrassing_. “So, uh. Know how long he’s gonna be?”

Scavenger paused and tilted his helm a bit. “He’s partway through reading some technical file. Looks like a long one. Maybe a breem or two before he’s done?” 

It must be nice, being able to just feel along the gestalt-bond to tell what your teammates were doing. But then Ons would always know where he was and what he was up to, and Blast Off would stop looking over his shoulder to make sure Vortex wasn’t following him (which he was), and Brawl would… probably keep prattling on about really stupid stuff. And Swindle would definitely use it to watch him while he was interfacing. None of that sounded appealing. If only he could get it to only work one-way. The Constructicons seemed to have some sort of ‘respect for privacy’ thing going on between them.

“Do we have to wait? He can just bookmark the file and go back to it.”

The green mech’s posture said he was confused. “He doesn’t like that, though. It breaks his concentration and he has to go back and re-read a lot of it – says it wastes valuable time.”

“Did he _tell_ you not to disturb him if I woke up?”

“Well… no. He actually said that I should tell him right away…”

There we go. The little nuisance was feeling guilty, and Vortex hadn’t had to do anything that would get Hook upset. “So you’ll tell him now, then?”

“Yeah. Just give me a cycle. It takes a bit to wake him up.”

Wait… what?

There was a long pause. “Okay, he’s on his way.” He was shuffling uncomfortably. “I hope he’s not mad…”

“What did you mean by ‘wake him up’? I thought you said that he was reading.”

“He was. Hook gets kind’a… into it, though. The same way he gets into everything that he does. And then it takes a while for him to get back out, because he was so far _in_. But that’s why he’s so good at everything, ‘cause he gets into it like that.”

Uh- _huh_. Idiotic rambling aside, that was actually pretty interesting information. The door opened with a swoosh and Hook came in just then, though, so there would be no further cross-examination of the most pathetic mech on base. For the moment.

“I am surprised to see you still on the berth.”

“And a good afternoon to you, too!”

“Hmph.” Hook turned to his teammate. “Thank you for watching him for me, Scrounge.”

“My pleasure! Anything else you need? I-I mean I… You aren’t…”

“I don’t know why you’re upset, but there is nothing I am mad about. Go tell Long Haul that you’ve been very helpful.”

“Okay!” The mech all but leapt off the berth and into Hook’s arms. He hugged him tight and then scampered out of the room.

“Hold still.”

“Mm?” The medic was next to Vortex, now, plugging into a medical port, and then everything went fuzzy. The room snapped back into focus after half a cycle and he shook his head. “We good?”

“You appear to be in working order but I need to have a look inside.”

“Heehee, I’ll open up for you _any_ time, Hookums.”

Making an irritated noise at the nickname – or the innuendo, or maybe both – Hook popped the catches on his carapace and started carefully picking his way around.

“So…”

“Mm?”

“Scrapper shot me?”

“Yes.”

“Is he in trouble?”

“Yes.”

Score! …Wait. “And…”

“You are in trouble, too.”

Damn.


	19. Chapter 19

After the chat with Scavenger, Vortex decided to do some looking into Hook’s reading habits. The mech blazed a wide trail through the base’s data-stores, literally thousands of files – some of which were quite lengthy – having ‘completed’ glyphs on them with the medic’s ident-marker. Only one had an in-progress tag on it; if Hook started something, he didn’t move on until he was done.

And despite the enormous volume of reading accomplished… Judging from the looks of things, they had only been read one at a time; they’d been read _quickly_ , yes, but individually. Every single one of those files had a separate timestamp, with no overlap at all. This, for someone that was highly-intelligent and apparently _liked_ reading, was weird.

Vortex, if he wanted to, could read two files, hold a conversation, and complete his shift on monitor duty at the same time, all without red-lining his CPU. Multitasking programs were handy that way. Being able to split your focus in different directions and not lose any comprehension was a great asset, and it was unheard of for a Cybertronian to not have them, even if they were either limited or the mech didn’t like to use them.

Now, it was entirely possible that the latter was Hook’s case, and he simply did not like them. After all, it was already obvious that he was one of the mechs who preferred reading to downloading. Reading was a _lot_ slower than downloading; however, reading allowed you to assimilate the knowledge right away, while downloading meant that you would have to un-archive it later when you needed it. Clearly, if Hook was bothering to learn something, he wanted to be able to use that knowledge immediately.

So it would make sense that Hook didn’t like using his multitasking very much, too. The downside to the programs was that they tended to create stress on the processor, and sometimes you could get lag when you shut the programs down as all the information blended together. You could also end up with memory glitches about what things had happened at which times, since technically you’d be doing several _different_ things, and with the programs turned off, your personal data-banks could end up telling you that your 24-megacycle day had been a lot more than 24-megs long.

It would make sense for Hook to not use them, and that was why, when he hard-lined, he _only_ hard-lined. It would make sense because Hook, jacked into a terminal, just sat there and only read one thing at a time.

But the multitasking software had a few automatic triggers – such as someone comm.-ing you or distracting you in some other way. This was a necessary failsafe, in case you got _attacked_ ; your multi-programs would automatically boot up and start a new thread, and then you could have time to react without having to make the mental switch between tasks, even if all you did was shut down the original thread anyway.

And according to Scavenger… Well, it was looking less and less like Hook didn’t _like_ his multi-program, and more like it was just very limited. Not nonexistent – if he didn’t have them at all, he wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation during surgery, and Vortex already knew that he could; and he wouldn’t be able to pet dear Scavvy when he hopped into his lap for a quickie, either. So Hook’s software was just… basic. Very, very basic. Which was kind of ridiculous for a mech that smart, but then again, maybe it wasn’t.

Hook did everything with an acute amount of focus. He concentrated on whatever his current task was, whether it be surgery, a construction project, or reading, and hated it if anything interrupted him.

So, the interrogator had a theory.

See, the Constructicons were built as a team for the express purpose of construction, and whoever originally built them put a lot of thought into their designs. They were all made big and sturdy, so as to handle any project sent their way, but they were all specialized, too. They had highly-individualized, in-built tools for each of their tasks, like Scavenger’s shovel having sensor-equipment.

Then there were the personalities: Scrapper was a good leader and a ‘big picture’ guy, Hook was great with details, Bonecrusher knew how to clear a project site in the most effective way possible, Mixmaster and Scavenger together could either synthesize or find anything they needed, and Long Haul could figure out how to efficiently get X tons of Y material from point A to point B. This was all widely-known.

But Vortex believed that it went even further. For example: Hook. Not just ‘great’ with details – details were everything to him. When he focused on a task, that task became his world. Everything narrowed down to what he was doing, and as Scavenger had put it, if he wasn’t finished then you needed to ‘wake him up’ in order to get him back out of it. That didn’t mean he _couldn’t_ do more than one thing at a time, of course. It just meant that his processing power would focus on a single task unless Hook started out consciously making the effort to split his attention.

This would be downright stupid for a soldier model to be designed that way, but again, the Constructicons hadn’t been built for war.

Vortex thought about all this while looking at the medic in question, who was, predictably, plugged into a terminal. And staring at a wall. Always, every time, he was staring at a wall. Hook didn’t even switch it up with looking at the _floor_ , for Primus’ sake.

So, the interrogator had a theory. And he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to test it.

Hook had, as usual, told him to wait until he was done, and then they could spend their off-shift together. This was a normal occurrence and _normally_ Vortex would do as asked. This time, he was going to do something different.

Slowly, he slid off the medical berth and walked over to stand in Hook’s line of sight. When the crane failed to react, he stepped in closer and crouched by his side. Still nothing, so he gently placed a hand on one of Hook’s thighs. Red optics _finally_ looked at him, but even partially-hidden by the visor it was obvious that they were glazed over, the Constructicon’s focus still on whatever he was reading. That told Vortex that a new thread had started up in the background of Hook’s mind, making sure that he wasn’t a threat.

Perfect. Vortex slid his hand slowly upwards and hooked a thumb into the medic’s hip-seam. The reaction was a slight tensing, but nothing else. Resisting the urge to chuckle, he let the hand wander higher, smoothing over Hook’s chest-plate, and then up over his shoulder to his neck. He remembered it having gotten a good reaction out of the medic before, so he tangled his fingers into the cabling and lightly scraped his fingertips along them. As before, Hook’s lips parted and his vents sucked in a small amount of air.

The Combaticon didn’t want to move too fast or he would risk knocking the green mech out of this state. Even if they were only the basics, his multi-program would still have the failsafes that said ‘Danger! Wake up!’ if something jarring happened. So he very slowly, carefully, stood up and moved around behind him, keeping his hand twined in the neck-cabling. This would be a good time to test a different theory, too…

Vortex slid a finger from his free hand lightly down one side of Hook’s crane-arm, then back the opposite way. Hook bucked and arched his back, a tiny, half-choked sound escaping his mouth. Unfortunately, that was enough to break the spell.

The medic popped up out of the seat like it had started on fire and spun around. He nearly yanked his hard-line out of its socket with the movement, but he didn’t seem to care about that as he _snarled_ at Vortex, lips curled in an ugly expression. “ _No_.”

Vortex giggled. “D’aaaw, I was only havin’ fun. Don’t gimme that look.”

And that was when the helicopter realized that he’d crossed a line. Hook punched him. Really, actually punched him. It was so out of character for the mech that the movement didn’t register in time for the Combaticon to dodge. The hit crashed into his faceplate hard enough to knock him on his aft.

“You do _not_ touch me while I am hard-lined. Understood?”

Vortex, one hand to his dented mask, stared up at the fuming Constructicon and nodded.

“Good. Get out of my medbay.”

“But I…”

“NOW.”

Too startled to do anything but comply, he fled.


	20. Chapter 20

“S’up?”

“Readin’.”

“Why?”

“S’interestin’.”

“Fiction?”

“Nah. History.”

“Blech. Why don’t’cha just leave the past, ya know, in the _past?_ ”

“Because finding out what mistakes others have made helps ensure that I do not make them, myself.”

“Ew, you’re using that tone again. Talk normal.”

“Heehee! But my dear Brawl, to what could you be referring to? Have you taken a blow to the cranial unit? Clearly, my speech pattern has in no way changed from that to which I am generally accustomed. Your perception of my altered elocution must be erroneous.”

“Ee _uugh_. Don’t _do_ that! Freaks me out!”

Vortex giggled quite happily and rolled onto his front, arms dangling off the side of his berth and his pedes up in the air. “You’re too easy, Brawly.”

“Hmph. Don’t wanna meet the mech you consider a challenge…”

“Brawl, _anyone_ is a challenge compared to you.”

“I’ma dent the _other_ side o’ yer facemask, I swear.” The tank swatted his teammate’s arms out of the way and crawled onto the bottom bunk.

“D’aaaw, you say the sweetest things.” Vortex shifted forwards a little more and peered under his own bunk to look at the other mech.

Brawl growled something about removing the interrogator’s head and rolled over to face the wall, visor going dark.

Vortex just giggled again and rolled to lay on his back, rotors splayed out around him. Ah, Brawl-baiting; always good for a laugh, even if it _was_ pretty effortless.

Still…

Dark fingers lightly traced over scuffed metal. The dent was almost gone, his self-repair slowly working out the depression. It hadn’t really hurt that much, getting punched, but it had left a clear mark for everyone to see, and his teammates’ teasing about him losing his toy had been a tad annoying.

Not that he was embarrassed. But he should have seen it coming; not just the punch itself, but the anger. He _had_ , essentially, been attempting to rape the mech. Hook had told him repeatedly that he didn’t want to interface, and then Vortex decided to try and molest him while he was in a vulnerable position.

He didn’t feel bad about it, of course. He’d done much worse than _try_ to interface an unwilling partner before. It was simply frustrating to have been set back so far. Right now, he wasn’t even allowed in the medbay. There hadn’t even been an ‘unless you’re dying’ tacked onto the end: Long Haul and Bonecrusher just met him at the door, told him he was no longer permitted, and threatened to shove his rotors where they most assuredly did not belong if he didn’t beat it, quick-like.

It was going to take some work to get back into Hook’s good graces, and he’d have to take it slowly.


	21. Chapter 21

“Still not allowed to see your pet?”

Vortex grunted. He had his arms crossed and his back hunched. One leg was bouncing out of pent-up frustration, and his optic band was over-bright.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ then.” Onslaught chuckled and pulled up a chair. “It’s been two whole orns.”

Another grunt.

“Let me guess: You have plans, but haven’t been allowed to enact them?”

A growl, this time.

“You’re usually more patient than this.”

The growl got louder.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

Vortex snapped his gaze over to the truck, his leg going still, before he responded with an annoyed huff and went back to glaring at the wall.

Onslaught chuckled again. “So I’m right.”

No response.

“And you just can’t bear it that you haven’t gotten him back yet.”

More nothing.

“You were so close you could smell it, and then you fragged up royally.”

The mech’s rotors started twitching faintly.

“And you just can’t _stand_ that he won’t let you try again.”

“Shut _up_.”

“No, I don’t think I will. See, this is such a rare opportunity for me – you’re usually so careful with your playmates, manipulating them _just_ so, and never taking it too far unless you don’t care about the outcome anymore. Clearly, you jumped the gun on this one.”

“Onslaught…”

“Mmm, did he leave you wanting? You chased him so hard for so long, and the thought of having him left you breathless. You ache for him, now, don’t you? And now you’re going to have to wait even longer, assuming you even get another chance.”

“ _Onslaught_ …”

“The way you pined after him was almost cute, you know.”

Vortex tackled the larger mech right out of his chair. Onslaught merely looked up at the helicopter from where he lay on his back, not having bothered to react.

“I’m sorry, was there something you wanted to say?”

Vortex growled, clawed fingers digging into his leader’s shoulders. “You can either ‘face me, or get the slag out of my quarters. Decide quickly.”

Onslaught chuckled. Then he rolled over, pinning the smaller Decepticon by the arms. “If you insist.”

The only sounds Vortex made after that were cries of pain and pleasure.


	22. Chapter 22

Blast Off was no fun at all.

Well, that wasn’t true. Blast Off could be a _lot_ of fun if you got him in the right mood. But it was hard to get him there. He could also be fun to stalk, because the shuttle tended to notice and get all paranoid – although he pretended that he was calm – even though he never actually _spotted_ you following him.

Neither of those situations applied right now. Right now, at this moment, Blast Off was no fun. Not even a little bit fun. He was utterly _lacking_ in the fun department.

Because Blast Off knew how to use medical overrides, and he’d turned off his damn tactile sensors. No, not _his_ , as in Blast Off’s – his, as in Vortex’s.

Vortex, whose armor was dented and scratched, who had a few leaking energon lines, and who was currently immobile due to a different set of overrides – again, courtesy of Blast Off. Supposedly, this was for his own good – the interrogator had some serious doubts. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t feel. At least he could still see and hear and smell, or else he would probably be going into hysterics about now.

But touch? Nope. No pain, no pleasure, no nothing. And it _sucked_.

On the plus side, he was getting fixed. Blast Off knew basic field repair, in addition to the overrides. So did Swindle, technically, but Vortex wasn’t about to let that particular mech anywhere near his internal systems.

But Blast Off was boring when he did repair-work. The mech was dispassionate and methodical and efficient, but in all the wrong ways.

\-----

“Aw, come on…”

“Go suck an Autodork.”

“Please?”

“Slag, no! After what you did?”

“At least lemme apologize to him… I’ll leave right afterwards!”

“Mech, you better leave right now, or so help me I’ll peel off your armor with my bare hands, one plate at a time.”

“…Will Hook repair me when you’re done?”

Vortex wasn’t sure what happened after that. He woke up in his quarters almost three breems later, a brand new dent in his faceplate shaped like Long Haul’s fist, and with Brawl laughing at him.


	23. Chapter 23

He hadn’t been expecting it, honestly.

“Hey, ‘T-t-tex!”

Well, he _had_ been expecting some sort of foul play, but…

“No, see – it-t’s a different flavor. Different addit-t-tives.”

But it had worked out so well.

“You like it-t, right?”

So very, _very_ well.

“Here, have another c-cube.”

Even if he _had_ been too drunk to understand most of what was going on.

\-----

//You did _what_ to him?!//

Mixmaster shuffled a bit. He didn’t look repentant in the slightest, but shuffling was something he just tended to do, no matter his mood. The grin on his face was impossible to mistake, though. //It’s not _permanent_.//

Hook scrubbed at his face, staring over at the helicopter, supine on his medical berth. //Did you have to bring him here, though? I mean…//

//It’s not like I could just leave him in the hallway… Somebody might’ve _done_ something to him.//

//Mix, dear, this is Vortex. If he woke up strapped upside-down to a wall with his cover-plates off, surrounded by throwing-darts and with transfluid covering his face, he’d probably start laughing.//

Mixmaster crossed his arms and shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. It didn’t work very well because he was still grinning. //I stand by my decision.//

//Did you stop to consider _my_ feelings whilst making this decision?// Hook turned an accusatory look on his teammate.

The chemist’s optic ridge rose. //Your feelings? Hook, you stopped being mad at him after the first orn. It has now nearly been three. Which feelings, exactly, are you talking about?//

\-----

Vortex groaned. He’d woken up in the medbay like this more times in the last few months than he could count. His everything hurt again, but it was the kind of pain that you felt through a fog – almost numb, yet you could still tell it was _there_. 

Wait…

Medbay? He was allowed inside again! Oooh, and no restraints. So, who was watching him?

There! Hook and Mixmaster, off to one side and… arguing? It was hard to tell – they weren’t actually _talking_ , but they were gesturing and making facial expressions like they were arguing.

Oh. Oh, that was why no restraints. His motor-functions were gone… Errors popping up _all_ over the place. Chemical impurities… whaaaat? No, no, no – slow down. Stupid HUD. No point in telling him what errors there were if he couldn’t _read_ them as fast as they were scrolling by.

And… and… look at the shiny. Mmm, were the ceiling lights always this pretty in here? Sparkly…

\-----

//Huh. I think he’s awake.//

Hook blinked and turned. Sure enough, the visor was lit up. But other than the fact that Vortex’s head was moving just _slightly_ , that was the only real difference. //You said he would be out for longer.//

//And that, dear-spark, is why I was _testing_ the formula.//

The medic fought the urge to groan in annoyance. //Did you really have to test it on _him_ , though?// 

//Yup.//

// _Why?_ // He couldn’t keep the exasperation from his voice.

Mixmaster gave him a look that said it should have been obvious.

\-----

Hello, Hook. Hiya, Mixxy. Nice day, yeah?

Oh. Oh, hands on him. Hook had such nice hands… If only he would stop touching his face, though, and start touching other things.

\-----

//Does he even know what’s going on?//

//Prob’ly not.//

//Hm.//

//…Should I be worried that you have that look on your face?//

//What look?//

//You realize that’s probably the kind of look he would’ve been wearing when you were jacked in and he…//

Hook’s gaze snapped up and he glared.

\-----

There… there was a plug in him. Medical port. Felt… felt weirder than normal.

And there was a hand still on his chin, tilting his face up and down as if checking for something. It wasn’t very comfortable. Vortex tried to raise a hand to swat it away, but he only got it a little above the table before it dropped right back down.

\-----

//You said that you are not sure how long he will be… incapacitated?//

//I was aiming for around a megacycle, but I was also aiming for that long unconscious, too, and he only stayed that way for half that.//

//So you have no idea.//

//Indeed.//

\-----

The plug was removed, as was the hand. Even though it had been annoying, he instantly missed the touch to his dermal plating. A small whine left his vocalizer in response.

\-----

//His core temp is rising…//

//Heh, not surprised.//

//Mixmaster…// The crane turned a warning look towards his fellow Constructicon.

//Oh, nothing like that. Really, Hook – you are far too suspicious of my motives.//

//For good reason – my suspicions are quite commonly _correct_.//

//Hmph. No, I did not put anything into him to intentionally cause an aphrodisiac-like effect. If something like that _is_ happening, it was purely accidental, and I don’t even know which chemicals it might have been.// Mixmaster paused. //He prob’ly just gets randy when he’s drunk. Isn’t that how you two started off, anyway? Him drunk and aroused?//

//Well… yes…//

//So why don’t you touch him some more? He’d prob’ly like it.//

Hook’s mouth twisted. //He is more than merely _drunk_ right now. And it would not be right, even if he _was_. It would be… taking advantage.//

//And you just said yourself that he could wake up… how was it you put it? Strapped upside-down to a wall-//

//Yes-yes… I know. But that’s…//

//You _know_ you want him. Pretty obvious that he wants you to, what with how hard he’s been tryin’.//

//I would prefer him aware.//

Mixmaster grinned. //You only want him aware so that you can reduce him to incoherency yourself.//

The glare was starting to look like a pout.

\-----

Comprehension was slowly returning. Very slowly, but it was. Enough to register that one of Hook’s thumbs was running along the very edge of a rotor-blade, even if he couldn’t see it. After another few cycles passed, he even realized that the crane wasn’t doing it on purpose.

\-----

//You are wrong, of course. I _am_ still mad at him. He tried to… to…//

//Sure he did. But you also knew that was the kind of mech he was to begin with. And you liked it.//

//I most certainly did not-//

//He’s a dangerous pet to you, one you want to tame. You weren’t mad because he tried to force you – you were mad because he was disobeying.//

//I…//

//And after you got over that, you just stayed angry on principle.//

//But…//

//Am I wrong?//

Hook’s gaze drifted away, pointed somewhere in the direction of the floor.

\-----

Yes… yes, right there. He still couldn’t move, but he could definitely still _feel_. The tension was slowly coiling up in the pit of his abdomen and his focus had ended up entirely on the one rotor-tip. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but it was a glorious torment.

\-----

//Hook.//

//Mm?//

//Heehee… Check his temp again.//

//Hn? …Oh!// He immediately pulled his hand away.

//Aaaaw, I think you made him sad. Jus’ look at his fingers curl…//

Hook stared down at the twitching rotors and tried to keep his own rising temperature from kick-starting his cooling fans.

//I think I’ll leave you two alone for a while. Lemme know if he has a weird reaction to the drugs. Toodles!//

//No… No, Mix! Mixmaster, get back here this instant! Do _not_ leave me alone with… with…// Hook stared down at the near-motionless body, something like fear in his optics, but oh, so much more.

\-----

The error messages were starting to go away. His secondary filters were beginning to pick out the impurities his primaries had missed upon consumption. Almost all coherency was back – he only had a light buzz at this point. He could probably move, now, if he tried, but…

But then he wouldn’t find out why Hook was looking at him like that.

The medic stared for a while. Then he turned, snagged his usual chair, and pulled it over. Hook leaned forward and propped his chin in his hand. “Now look what you’ve done. Why in the name of all that is sacred did you trust _him_ to give you energon?”

Trust? Never. Allow, in the slim hopes of getting either the chemist or Hook himself into a better mood? A calculated, if slightly desperate, risk.

“I should scrap you for what you did. I _know_ that you know that what you did was wrong.”

Uh-oh. Going places he did _not_ want to be going…

“Of course, I knew from the start that you did things that you knew were wrong.”

Then again, maybe not.

Hook merely looked at him for a short bit. “Can you move, yet? Or speak?”

Vortex let his optic band glow a little brighter, but decided to see if pretending he was still immobile would get him any further. Hook was being unusually open right now. Maybe he would keep talking if he thought that the interrogator wasn’t really aware.

“Hm.” Hook smirked. “I’m not going to touch you again, so long as you are like that, you know.”

Well, that was no fun at all. But it implied that there would be touching in the future, and that was fabulous.

“If you apologize to me, though… I might be persuaded to forgive you.”

Hm. On one hand, Hook never told an outright lie. On the other hand, he _would_ twist the truth a bit. That ‘might’ in there could be potentially dangerous. Vortex decided to go for it – after all, gambling with Mixmaster’s mystery fuel had turned out okay so far. He let out a low, staticky hiss.

“Ah, so it _is_ wearing off, then. That or you are faking and it has worn off entirely. You will get no sympathy from me, you realize.”

But if he gave away that he was faking it wouldn’t get him anywhere, either. He let out another burst of static, louder, and let a bit of a whine through as an undertone.

“Let us speed things up a bit, shall we?” Hook stood again and, with a practiced gesture, plugged back into Vortex’s medical port.

All the coherence he’d gotten back in the last few cycles went right back out the proverbial window. Something pushed through his surface programs, brushed against sensory data and the few remaining error messages, and then pulled back out. His focus snapped back into place and he almost shook his head out of habit.

“Vortex.”

Ah, the jig was up, was it?

“Stop faking or I won’t touch you again for the next stellar cycle.”

The helicopter jerked upwards, flailing for a moment as unprepared tensor cables and hydraulics burst into motion, and halfway fell off the berth before catching himself.

This was made up for entirely by Hook’s small smile. “Much better. Now, apologize.”

Vortex started to say something, and then made a choked sound. He cleared his vocalizer and tried again. “…Do I have to?”

“ _Yes_.” And the dangerous look Hook was wearing suddenly made that clear.

“Oh. Um… I’m… I’m sorry?”

“That was the most pathetic excuse for an apology that I have ever heard. You didn’t just bump into me in the hallway, you attempted to violate me. Try again.” Hook leaned back in his seat, arms and legs both folded as he gave the helicopter a flat look.

And then Vortex got an idea. He slowly slid off of the berth, just in front of the crossed legs. Then he sank to his knees and reverently took Hook’s raised pede between both hands. “I’m so sorry, Hook.” He leaned in and lightly nuzzled the appendage. “Can you ever forgive me?” Vortex followed this by pressing his facemask against the top of the pede in an approximation of a kiss.

The helicopter’s sudden position on his back with a hand around his throat was interesting, but it was the expression on Hook’s face that gave him his answer.

“That’s a ‘yes,’ then?” Vortex giggled a bit, despite the grip on his neck. Frag, but Hook looked hot when he was turned on.

The medic seemed to catch himself and he pulled away, looking startled at his own reaction. After a few seconds, Hook realized that he was sitting on Vortex’s middle and he jumped up, almost tripping over his chair before he unsteadily sat on it.

“Mmm, does Hookums like it when I’m a good little ‘copter?” He rolled right back up to his knees and leaned forwards again, this time to lace his fingers together atop Hook’s thigh and rest his chin on them.

Hook looked horrified and his temperature was through the roof. If a mech listened closely, he could hear the low thrum of the crane’s engine growling. But he wasn’t pulling away, and he wasn’t protesting.

“I think he does,” Vortex purred and rubbed the side of his facemask against the thigh, his fingers slipping down to run along the sides.

“Stop it,” Hook commanded, albeit very shakily.

And Vortex did.


	24. Chapter 24

Vortex didn’t try pushing his luck for the next few days. He’d only just gotten Hook to forgive him, and he didn’t want to risk that fragile trust so soon. So, all he did was go back to the usual hanging out in the same room, having playful chats with him, and telling a multitude of lewd jokes.

Thus far, it seemed that things had returned to how they were before. Well, mostly. Vortex _had_ noted a few changes. Hook no longer read in his company, for one. Apparently the crane wasn’t willing to take that particular chance anymore; disappointing, but understandable.

And whereas before they’d generally ignored the Combaticon, most of the Constructicons now shot him dirty looks when they saw him, despite the fact that Hook had told them he was forgiven. Scrapper seemed to hate him even more than he had before, too, which was honestly impressive, considering just how much he’d _already_ hated him.

On the other end of the spectrum, Mixmaster seemed thrilled. The helicopter had no idea what the cement truck and Hook had talked about while he was drugged out of his mind, but apparently the chemist was to thank for Hook forgiving his little transgression.

Also, the mech kept calling him “kitty” now. This was… odd. The second time he’d heard the guy call him that, he’d questioned it. The only answer he got was Mixmaster stuttering something about Hook getting bitten…

Not that it was an unappealing thought, but he was missing context somewhere. Maybe the medic would be able to translate. Assuming that he was willing – even before the Incident he had a habit of avoiding conversations about his gestalt. Vortex wasn’t sure if that was simple personal preference, or if he just didn’t like giving the interrogator more ammo than was necessary.

Regardless, the fact remained that four out of six Constructicons did not like him. That was two-thirds of the gestalt.

And right now, two-thirds was apparently enough to get Devastator to see him come into the medbay, reach over, and flatten him onto the floor with one hand. Well, not _flatten_ , although the huge mech was no doubt capable of that. But there was a great big hand that more than covered Vortex’s entire chest bearing down on him, fingers curled up around his shoulders, and suffice to say that he could no longer stand up.

Vortex blinked up at the enormous face, his HUD screaming pressure warnings at him from his half-crushed rotor-hub. At this point, it was unlikely that the combiner would kill him, and that was really the only thing that would bother the rotary. That didn’t change the fact that he had no idea what to expect from this. He’d really only encountered Devastator as part of Bruticus or from afar during a battle. He did know that all of his individual parts had to agree on something in order to act on it, like most gestalts.

“…Yo.” Vortex added in a little wave, since his limbs were still free.

“Bruticus.”

The voice boomed down at him, travelling through the hand on his chest and vibrating his whole body. Mmm, _tingly_. “Well, yes. His arm, anyway.”

“Bruticus component.”

 _Very_ tingly; he could feel his rotors juddering against the metal panels beneath him. “That’ll work. May I ask why you have pinned me to the floor?”

“You are… interrupting.”

“Interrupting what?” As far as he was aware, when he’d walked in the giant mech had been sitting in the middle of the room, not doing anything.

“…Conference.”

Vortex tilted his head. He decided right there that the sneer currently on Devastator’s face belonged to Hook. “I… see.” Well, he’d already known that the Constructicons were a lot better at getting along with each other than any of the other Decepticon gestalts; apparently they were willing to combine with each other just for the sake of working things out between them. Despite the fact that the medbay – one of the most spacious rooms on base – was much too small for a mech that big; even sitting down, Devastator was hunched over to avoid bumping his head on the ceiling.

“Devastator is conflicted. Lack of unity is… distressing.”

Vortex had a feeling that he knew what this was about. “Am _I_ distressing?”

Devastator gave him a calculating look. It took a while before he came to a conclusion. “Yes. Bruticus components are confusing.”

He didn’t have to ask why it had been pluralized – Onslaught was still popping in now and again to mess with Scrapper’s head. It made him feel oddly proud of his team leader. “Do I make you unhappy?”

Another long pause as the combiner thought about it. “Confusing,” he finally repeated, accompanied by a frown.

“Do you want to hurt me?”

“Yes.” Hahaha, no delay at all with that one!

“Do you want to kill me?”

And back to thinking for half a cycle. “No.”

Vortex’s optic band flashed. “Would you like to make me scream?”

Devastator stared at him for a long time, much longer than any of the others, his expression giving away nothing. And then the other hand came forward, one finger extending to press down on a rotor-blade.

The thin metal bent and compressed as pressure was applied, truly _flattening_ it to the floor. Vortex felt the coupling on his hub strain as the finger began slowly dragging the blade outwards, the grinding sound of metal-on-metal following in its wake. The helicopter’s legs began to kick and he groped blindly at the hand on his chest. His ventilations picked up and a small sound left his vocalizer.

Then Devastator pinched the barely-connected rotor between finger and thumb, right before giving it a sharp tug, the connectors snapping easily. He smiled as Vortex did, in fact, scream. Unfortunately for the combiner – or certain parts of the combiner – he seemed to get confused again immediately. Apparently, he could not decide what to do after that.

Vortex panted, temperature high and circuits ablaze, as Devastator… fell apart.

Six mechs looked at him. Scrapper appeared frustrated, Long Haul was amused, Bonecrusher looked taken aback, and Scavenger was bewildered. Mixmaster was laughing himself sick on the floor. And Hook...

Hook strode over quickly, expression a storm of conflicting emotions, grabbed Vortex by the arm in one hand and his detached rotor in the other, and hauled them both right out of the medbay, continuing down the hall without even pausing to glance back at him again.


	25. Chapter 25

It was pretty damn funny just how many weird looks they got on their path down the hallway. Any attempt to talk to Hook – from others or from Vortex – was met with an utter lack of reaction, although the helicopter getting pulled along was more than happy to wave at the dozen or so passersby. The reactions ranged from derisive expressions to leers and cheerful cat-calls.

When they got to Vortex’s quarters, Hook finally stopped and looked at him, mouth pressed in a thin line. “Open it.”

Intensely curious about where this was leading, he keyed in the code. The door swished open and Brawl looked up from his bunk.

It took precisely three seconds for Brawl to come to a conclusion about their sudden appearance – surprisingly quick for the idiot. “Can I watch?”

Hook’s upper lip curled in an ugly expression. “Out. Now.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’s _my_ room, too. You can’t just order me to-”

“I can, and you will comply or…” Hook paused and looked down to his right side, where a dark hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

“Oh, let him stay. Now, what was it you were telling me about electromagnetic frequencies?” Vortex asked, his tone all innocent curiosity.

There was the merest twitch of recognition on Hook’s face before one side of his mouth quirked into a blink-and-you-miss-it smile. “Very well. As I was saying, electromagnetic radiation is different from an electromagnetic field in that the latter is a more broad term, while the former is a particular form of EM field which is associated with only the type which is far enough away from the moving charges that-” 

“BYE.” Brawl couldn’t get out of the room fast enough, shoving right past the both of them.

As soon as the door shut, Vortex laughed. “Easiest way to get him out of the room – the power of SCIENCE.”

Hook snorted faintly, clearly amused. “I shall remember that. Now be a dear and engage the lock, would you?”

The helicopter turned and tapped at the controls, then watched as Hook glanced down at the rotor-blade still in his hand before tossing it onto Brawl’s bunk and beginning to pace the narrow length of the room. Vortex edged his way over to the berth and sat down to watch. Pacing was new – Hook generally sat or stood still when he was thinking. It meant that whatever he was thinking about was making him restless. Maybe even _frustrated_. Frustrated could lead to interesting places if properly coaxed…

The medic paused, turned towards the Combaticon, opened his mouth, and closed it again with a frown. Step, step, step, pivot, step, step, step, pivot…

It took an effort to not squirm. Getting pinned to the floor like an insect getting its wings pulled off had had an effect on him. So had the rough handling by Hook immediately following. Hook being rough was as new as the pacing. If Vortex wasn’t on an operating table, the medic tended to touch him carefully, if at all – bathing or polishing or the occasional rotor-maintenance.

Finally, he faced Vortex again. “The doors were locked.”

Eh? Oh, medbay. “Since when has that stopped me?”

“Hmph.” The medic had his hands clasped behind his back, and Vortex wanted to know if they were fidgeting but he couldn’t _see_. “You should have still been on-duty.”

The Combaticon shrugged. “Got done early.” Which meant that he’d skipped out on the last couple of breems or so. Breakdown would cover for him; if he didn’t, he’d regret it.

Hook regarded him carefully for a moment. “Scrapper wants to kill you.”

That got Vortex laughing. “What was your first clue?”

“No, I mean… I had not realized that he…”

“He shot me. In the chest. With a rifle. Yes, I know that he wants me dead. You mean to tell me that you didn’t?”

A strange, conflicted sound came from the Constructicon’s vocalizer. “I suppose that I… was aware… I simply did not…”

“You hadn’t thought about how serious it was, or the ramifications; didn’t think it went beyond the fact that I was antagonizing him deliberately that day.”

Grey lips pursed back together.

Vortex shifted to lean back on his hands. “He thinks I’m irrevocably tainting you. That I’m stealing you from the team.”

“Yes.”

He snickered a bit. “Am I?”

It took a while for Hook to answer. “I am, and always will remain, a Constructicon. My Team comes first.”

“But…?”

Hook’s mouth twisted in that funny way of his when he wasn’t sure how to answer and anything he came up with was disagreeable. “You are leaking. I should fix your rotor.”

Vortex let the topic-change slide and leaned down to snag the aforementioned appendage from the floor. “It can wait.” He waggled the warped bit of metal back and forth a bit, listening to the funny sound it produced. “Ya know, ‘Crusher and Haul threatened to shove these into my unmentionables back when you were ticked at me.”

Hook frowned, but in the manner that told Vortex he was amused, if perhaps a little disturbed. “I would not recommend that.” The down-turned corners of his mouth twitched a little, but didn’t quite reverse into a smile.

“I’unno, sounds kind’a fun to me.”

The crane snorted. “No, I will not fuck you with your rotor-blade. It would tear your insides to shreds and create an enormous mess, and then I would have to fix you. Now turn around; at the least, I am going to clamp those fluid lines so you stop oozing all over Brawl’s berth.”

“Come on, you know you wanna find out what kinds of noises I make with a blade shoved up my interface.”

Hook gave him an exasperated look. “I do not wish to cause you damage.”

Vortex giggled. “Ha! Liar.”

The expression became a scowl. “I – do – not – lie.”

“Hee~, maybe not consciously.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Vortex’s remaining rotors spun slowly. “Devastator told me otherwise.”

The scowl softened in confusion. “He… did?”

“Mhmm! Plus, ya know… He pulled off my rotor as proof. You know he wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t been okay with it.”

Hook watched him carefully for a moment. “Being ‘okay with it’ while in that state and consciously doing so as myself – only myself – are two entirely different things.”

“Sure, sure… But you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

Again, the mouth-twisting.

“No subject-changing. You _like_ seeing me splayed out and bleeding.”

“That is… not entirely…” He seemed to struggle for what he wanted to say. “I mean, that is… That is to say, I do not prefer you that way.”

Vortex snorted. “You’re fooling yourself. What you _like_ is me at your mercy, helpless. You also like me when I’m in pain.”

A low growl started in the crane’s engine, his optics narrowed. “You like you when you’re in pain.”

The Combaticon shrugged. “My statement stands. And thus, you like me injured.”

Hook threw his hands up in frustration before plunking himself ungracefully onto the single chair, looking quite grumpy.

Vortex tilted his head and simply watched him, trying not to chuckle out loud. After several cycles of the medic just sitting there, stewing things over, Vortex lay back on the berth. Underneath him, he could feel the small puddle of fluids that had been slowly dripping down from his swashplate. He did chuckle this time, and rolled over, smearing the oil and energon across his front. “Fine, if it’ll cheer you up, you can fix me.”

The green mech looked up, giving him a sour look. “Oh, am I permitted, now? How magnanimous of you, good sir.”

Still snickering, the helicopter let his three attached rotors lazily spin again. “Well, you declined to make _use_ of my condition, so why not?”

The slight movement of Hook’s head told Vortex that he was rolling his optics, but the mech stood up and came over. “Uck… You have made a mess of yourself, in addition. Must you always wallow every time you encounter such filth?”

“It gets your hands on me, so yes,” Vortex chirped brightly, fingers neatly folded beneath his chin.

“Disgusting.” He seemed resigned to it, rather than upset. Straddling the helicopter’s thighs, Hook set to work.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [Bibliotecaria_D](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D), because they ~~hypnotized me~~ asked me for an update.

Role reversals were fun to watch for all sorts of reasons – mostly because it tended to put people into a vulnerable state of mind.

“Go. Away.”

Vortex giggled and pulled up a chair, sitting in it backwards and resting his chin atop his forearms.

“I cannot help but to detect a lack of obedience.”

Another giggle and the helicopter scooted his chair closer.

“I am going to shoot you. I am going to shoot you and it will hurt very much, and… Oh, Primus, who am I kidding?”

Vortex laughed outright as Hook groaned, head falling backwards onto the medical berth. “You’re welcome to try, of course. But you know that’ll just mean I have a legitimate reason to hang out in here.”

“Yes, I _know_...” Hook slung an arm across his optics – which were distinctly lacking their customary visor. Not to mention that at the moment it was actually ‘optic’, as in singular.

“D’aaaw, you look so sad! Can I cheer you up?”

“Touch me and forfeit whatever appendage you have decided to use to do so.”

“Kinky~,” the rotary purred.

The one functional eye peered out from under the arm, silver face pinched in an irritated scowl. Or a pout, more likely, but of course Hook would never admit to that.

“Aw, come on. It’s gonna take days for Scraps to finish building your new parts. There’s no way you want to be left completely alone for _that_ long.”

The scowl (and/or pout) became a glare. “Yes. I do. I really, truly do.”

“See, you’re lying to yourself again. For a mech who values the truth so much, you have a bad habit of doing that.”

“ _Fine_ , I will amend my previous statement. I would really, truly like to be left alone by anyone and everyone who would speak to me, touch me, or otherwise attempt to irritate me during my current period of incapacitation. My gestaltmates do not count, as anything they would do would actually be _productive_.”

Vortex sat up and pressed a hand to his chest dramatically. “My spark, it aches! You have wounded me deeply, dearest Hook!” He leaned forward again and gestured imploringly towards the other mech. “How could you speak so ill of me, your cherished comrade? My only wish is to make you happy! Can you not see that my attempts at trite joviality are merely an endeavor to bring a smile to your trepidatious face?”

Hook leaned back slightly, the arm retreating from his face and moving towards his side so he could lever himself onto his elbow and lean _further_ away. All the while, he stared at Vortex like he’d grown a second head.

“Something the matter?”

“Vortex…”

“Yes?”

“Never speak to me like that again, please.”

“Okay.”

“I already know that you’re intelligent.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. But that’s no reason to make it so disturbingly obvious with the use of uncharacteristic vocabulary.”

“Ah.”

“…You are permitted to speak to others like that in my presence, however; just not directly to me.”

“ _Oh?_ ”

“I want to see Scrapper’s face.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Soooo…”

Sigh. “Dare I ask?”

“How’s it feel, only having an arm?”

Hook shifted uncomfortably. “It is… distressing.”

“In what way?”

“I cannot _do_ anything.”

“Sure you can.”

The Constructicon looked unconvinced.

“You can still shoot.”

“From this position, flat on my back, my aim would be atrocious. Not to mention that the recoil while my mass is so far reduced and I am incapable of properly supporting myself would probably knock the rifle right out of my hand. Or end up smacking it into my remaining optic.”

“Okay, good point.” There was a pause. Then a giggle. “You could always open up your panel and-”

“If you finish that sentence, Vortex, so help me I will risk my remaining means of vision to shoot you, and I will aim for your vocalizer. Maybe _then_ I will finally get some peace and quiet.”

“Ahahahaha! Well, fine.” The helicopter rolled his head back, supposedly trying to think of something else. His fingers tapped arrhythmically against the top of the chair’s backrest. “You could plug in and get some reading d- …Okay, maybe not.”

Hook was giving him a death glare.

“Hmm… Well, there’s always origami.”

The medic blinked.

“It’s this human thing they do with paper. They fold it into shapes and stuff, turn the flat surface into a three-dimensional object.”

“I think that would be much easier to accomplish with _two_ hands.”

“Well, yeah, sure. But your hands are… Well…”

Hook’s non-melted optic ridge quirked upwards. “My hands are _what?_ ”

Sexy. “Really dexterous. You’ve got those long, slender fingers, and I know yer hands’re really steady. I’m sure you could manage just fine s’long as I found you some sheets big enough.”

After a long moment, the medic shrugged. The gesture looked funny, considering that one shoulder was mostly nonexistent, little trails of wiring poking out of the hole. “If you want to go rummaging for compressed plant fibers, by all means, go right ahead. I make no promises as to whether I will attempt sculpting them, however.”

Vortex sniggered happily. “I’ll tell Swin’ to get me some later.”

Hook just made a noncommittal sound, gaze wandering off around the medbay.

“I’m kind’a surprised you aren’t stubbornly attempting to fix yourself right now.”

The medic’s face scrunched up in a surly expression. “I would, but I can neither reach nor see what remains of my limbs.” He glanced back at the rotary. “Plus… The others would start fussing over how I should be resting.”

Vortex made a half-snorted chuckling sound. “Ah, the wonders of gestaltmates that _care_.”

Hook gave a long-suffering sigh. “Such is my lot in life.” His lips quirked up into the tiniest of smiles.

“Yes, such a tragedy. And it’s totally not like you would fuss over them just as much. Nope, definitely not.”

The medic rolled his optics. Er… _optic_. “Yes, but being a medic is my _job_.”

Vortex actually paused and stared.

“What?”

“…You know you don’t treat your gestalt _anything_ like how you treat the rest of your patients, yeah?”

“Well… Yes, I suppose.” Hook’s nose wrinkled up. “But that’s because if they get injured, it was while being productive. Everyone else is… Well, they’re dumb.”

Vortex laughed. He laughed really loudly.

“ _What?_ ”

“Just… hearing you say ‘dumb.’ That was hilarious. You usually say stuff like ‘imbecilic’ or ‘mentally deficient.’”

Hook offered a mildly annoyed glare. “ _Anyway_. As long as I am forced to accept your company, you might as well tell me how things are going around the base.”

Blink. “You… want me to tell you the latest gossip?”

He huffed. “ _No_ , I want you to tell me relevant news. I have been stuck in here since Omega Supreme decided to try decapitating Devastator with his _fist_ , and I was unconscious for two days. I want to know if anything important has happened.”

Vortex tilted his head. “I figured your team kept you filled in. Huh. But yeah, sure.”

Another huff, and Hook looked for a moment like he wanted to cross his arms but… Yeah. That didn’t really work with just one.

“Uh… Well, the doohickey got blown up. Prime shot it rather than let us capture the thing.” He pondered, one finger tapping his facemask. Then Vortex blinked and gave the other mech an odd look. “Did you know the lead trine got captured?”

Hook blinked back. Then his optic twitched. “Seriously?”

Vortex giggled. “Yup!”

“All… all _three_ of them?” he asked incredulously.

“Lord Megatron is _ticked_.” Another giggle and the rotary rocked back and forth on his chair.

Hook groaned. “I can only imagine… How are we going to get them back?”

“Oh, negotiations are already underway.”

“Hm. Do you know what we have to offer in excha-… Okay, what do you know?” His sentence changed as he noticed the sheer glee radiating from the grey mech.

“We’ve got prisoners, too~,” he sing-songed.

“Oh?” Hook actually looked interested at that. “Who?”

“Except I’m not allowed to play with ‘em, which really sucks… Apparently it would be detrimental to getting Screamy and his blundering idiots back.”

Sigh. “I am sure that you are suffering deeply, and I grieve for you. But _who_ are our prisoners?”

“Hm… Lessee… We’ve got the minibot who has a fetish for guns bigger than he is and the yellow Lamborghini-”

“We have Sunstreaker?”

Vortex paused, noting the intense look on Hook’s face. “…Yeah?”

Hook made an inarticulate sound of frustration, arm getting tossed up into the air for emphasis. “This _would_ be the time we actually catch him. And here I am without a leg to stand on.”

The Combaticon laughed, and the Constructicon just looked confused.

“What?”

“You made a joke!”

Hook’s mouth turned into a mild frown. “I was being quite serious.”

“I know. That’s why it’s so funny!”

“Oh, go _away_.”


	28. Chapter 28

“What’cha readin’?”

Hook glanced up from his datapad as Vortex walked into the room.

The medic apparently still wasn’t about to plug into any terminals while stuck confined to a berth, even when Vortex wasn’t present. Which was probably smart, ‘cause if the helicopter walked in while Hook had that blank look on his face he wouldn’t be able to help himself. The green mech just looked so _touchable_ , flat on his back with nothing but an arm to defend himself with, little bits of wire and cable sticking out from the empty joint-sockets on his left side. Vortex was willing to bet that his right thigh – that particular limb had only gotten torn off at the knee – would thrash up and down, wiggling delightfully if the interrogator could just get his hands on…

“Origami.”

Vortex tilted his head, moving a bit closer to look at the datapad’s screen. The fact that the position put him tantalizingly close to Hook definitely had nothing to do with him taking the position. Nope, definitely not. “I thought you weren’t interested?”

The right shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I was… marginally curious.”

“…Swin’ got me the paper, if you want.”

“Maybe later.” A pause. “You can move away, now. I know you aren’t really looking at the screen.”

Vortex giggled and, since he was found out anyway, leaned further down to quickly nuzzle the side of Hook’s face. Then he danced away, barely avoiding the snap of sharp dental plates. “Feisty~!”

Looking for a moment like he might try to chuck the ‘pad at Vortex’s head, Hook thought better of it and huffed air out of his vents. “What brought this particular… human preoccupation to your attention, by the way? You don’t strike me as the type to study alien cultures.”

The helicopter shrugged, snagging his usual chair. “You’d be surprised by just how freaked out some of the more xenophobic in our midst get when you incorporate subtle humanisms into the conversation.”

“Ah.”

“I mean, even just using their curse-words makes a bunch of ‘em twitch.” Vortex chuckled, then paused. “Hey, don’t you say ‘fuck’?”

Hook considered. “Yes, I think Haul got me into the habit. He rather enjoys learning new vulgarities.”

“Had you pegged for a traditionalist.” Vortex made a vague finger-wiggly motion with one hand. “You keep surprising me with your flexibility.”

“And I can hear the leer in your voice. Your double entendres are getting a bit obvious.”

“I’ll try to work harder at making them subtle, just for you.” The helicopter pressed his fingertips briefly to his facemask and blew a mock kiss before settling in his seat.

Hook made a small snorting sound, amused. “How considerate.”

“So, anyway...”

“Hm?”

“Why do you like ‘fuck’ better than ‘frag’?”

The medic opened his mouth, then closed it as he thought about the question. “I was going to say that it was just a subconscious incorporation of my teammate’s vocabulary…”

“But?” Vortex leaned in, elbows on his knees. He was actually sitting in the chair correctly for once. Generally speaking, he didn’t do that – rotors were a tad inconvenient that way, unless he literally sat at the edge of his seat.

“I like the way it feels.”

“The way it… feels?”

Hook chuckled lightly. “Yes.” He slowly moved his mouth with the word: “Ffff- _uck_. Something about the way the word is formed is just… so much more satisfying than ‘frag.’”

“Huh.”

“Confused?”

“No… I think I get it.” He could draw parallels with other actions that mechs had seemingly illogical preferences for, at least.

“Hm. I can think of no better way to explain it, so you will just have to use your imagination.”

Vortex leaned back, rotor-hub pressing into the chair as his arms crossed. “Huh,” he repeated.

“Which one do _you_ prefer? …Wait, why am I even asking?” Hook shook his head and frowned. “Why are we discussing _curse-words?_ ”

The helicopter giggled. “Somethin’ ta do? Come on, it’s not as bad as the time we got onto the topic of which of our teammates had the weirdest hobbies.”

Hook’s good optic started twitching. “I thought we agreed never to bring that conversation back up again.”

“Heehee, oops?” Vortex was anything but repentant, rotor-blades twitching merrily behind him.

Shaking his head to clear away the mental images, Hook pressed his lips into a thin line. Then his brow furrowed in thought before he looked back up. “Come over here.”

“You’re inviting?” Well, that was interesting. The helicopter stood, watching the other mech carefully but not moving closer yet.

“I am _telling_ you to come stand next to me. Nothing else.”

Vortex decided that the expression of intent on Hook’s disfigured face was going to lead to Very Fun Things and obeyed, coming right up next to the berth and waiting.

“Climb up here. No touching,” he added as the rotary practically pounced.

“Aw~…” Vortex sniggered and adjusted himself to hover on all fours above the other mech, hands just to the sides of his waist. Oh, so close…

“Now turn around.”

Eh?

“Sit down, facing away from me – as closely as you can while still not making contact.”

…Oh. The red visor flared brightly as he understood, Vortex twisting himself around to sit as instructed, right next to the mech’s single thigh. Then he heard the datapad being set down. _Then_ he felt the barely-there touch of one finger to the edge of a rotor.

“No moving.”

Vortex dug his claws into his drawn-up legs. The finger stroked, so very lightly, up and down that one edge, before all four digits moved to pet the flat side.

“I can see dust and grit in your swashplate.”

The helicopter shuddered, a small sound escaping him.

“Just because I cannot get off of this berth does not excuse you from keeping up with proper hygiene.”

Vortex groaned as the finger slipped into the gaps around the base of his rotors. Hook had gotten a soft cloth at some point, and had it wrapped around the probing digit. “M-maybe I just want to make sure you have something e-EN!-joyable to do once you get your limbs back. _Oooh_ , right there…”

Hook huffed faintly. “Filthy degenerate.”

“Yup! …Oh-oh-oh, _yes!_ ” Hearing the faint chuckle behind him, Vortex flared his rotors a bit, widening the gap that Hook was currently working on, and groaned.

He knew what the mech was doing, of course. He’d been doing a good job of hiding it so far, putting up the act of vague annoyance – but Hook was terrified. The medic was feeling useless, helpless… And it was driving him nuts. Hook craved control – needed it, really. So this, this act of ordering Vortex to submit to him, of making him feel pleasure… That was Hook doing what he could to take control of the situation.

The green mech had been resisting the urge for a couple days, now. Vortex had noticed the subtle tension, the worse-than-usual restraint in what the mech said and how he reacted to Vortex’s snark. Now, though, it seemed that he’d finally broken, and Hook was taking whatever control he could get.

In Hook’s quest for dominance, he was, in fact, showing just how weak he felt. “Mm~, oh yes, do that again…” Vortex drank up the delicious irony like a rare vintage of high grade.

“Ask nicely.” The finger teased lightly at the edge of one blade.

“ _Nnnnn!_ Please, Hookums?”

Hook grabbed the rotor hard and squeezed. “My name is Hook.”

The helicopter yelped at the pressure, back arching and optic-band flaring. “H-HOOK!”

“I believe that I told you to hold still.” The medic kept the grip, but lightly ran the flat of his thumb up and down the broad side of the blade.

“C-can’t…”

Hook chuckled, then pulled the rotor to his mouth and sucked. Vortex had to admit that he didn’t really remember what happened after that. 


	29. Chapter 29

//You look terrible.//

//And a good day to you, Hook.//

//Sorry.// Hook set down his datapad and gave his gestaltmate an apologetic twist of the mouth. Scrapper merely huffed irritably and pulled up a chair.

//You’ll be happy to know that my current state of less-than-satisfactory cleanliness is because your limbs are coming along nicely. You should have your legs by tomorrow morning. Your arm may be a bit longer. You know how things go when your hands get damaged…//

Hook sighed and looked up towards the ceiling. //Yes, I know. Is Scrounge doing okay?//

//Better than you.// Scrapper chuckled at the pout he received. //He’s _fine_. Perhaps a bit more twitchy than normal… Not having his tail is making him a bit paranoid, what with all the missing sensory equipment…//

//He’s only come in to see me twice since I woke up.//

//I’ll tell him that you miss him.//

//Thank you.// Hook shifted a bit, glancing at the door.

//I don’t like that he keeps coming in here when the rest of us aren’t around.//

The medic frowned, looking back at his leader. //Who?//

//You know damn well ‘who.’//

Hook scowled. //He hasn’t done anything; nor shall he.//

//But you’re so-// Scrapper broke off at the almost vicious look he was receiving. //Okay, okay… Yes, I know you can handle him. No, I don’t think you’re helpless. I just… I worry, okay?//

The snarl softened into a bitter frown. //I know. And we need to talk about that.//

Scrapper stiffened a bit, then nodded, but he didn’t relax. //We do.//

//You really do hate him.//

//Yes.//

//I am aware that he’s dangerous.//

//I should hope so.//

//He’s also…//

Scrapper leaned forwards, waiting patiently for the other mech to continue.

//He’s fun, entertaining... I like him.//

The other Constructicon sighed, putting one hand on his helm. //I know you do. That just makes him _more_ dangerous.//

//He won’t do anything.//

//I can see that you are quite convinced of that.//

Hook frowned at the bitter tone in his teammate’s voice. //I didn’t say that he wouldn’t _try_. But I do not intend to let him succeed.//

The second hand joined the first, Scrapper’s head cradled in his palms. //I just… I cannot understand why you would bother with the risk. Are you just getting off on the danger? Mix seems to think that’s what it is…//

//It’s… complicated.//

//What does he give you that we don’t? We’re _team_. We’re supposed to complete each other; fill in the gaps to make the whole. That’s _gestalt_.//

//Yes, but…// Hook looked away, fingers fidgeting against the berth’s edge.

//But _what?_ // Scrapper stood abruptly, hands raised and fingers curled angrily. //He’s… what, more exciting than we are? He’s a thrill? So Mixmaster was right – you’re getting off on having that lunatic as a… a barely leashed _pet_. I thought that was why you decided to take over the majority of the medical work – because you didn’t _like_ the excitement of battle! You wanted to be designated as the surgical engineer because then you could deal with the aftermath and didn’t have to be in the thick of things on the field! Why _now_ did you suddenly change your mind?//

Hook’s expression was closed-off, nonexistent. Aside from the ugly smear of super-heated metal on the left side of his face, the grey features were smoothed into utter calm. Then, after a few seconds, it slowly tensed. The lips twitched, the optic brightened, and the medic snarled. He bit down on the sound almost as soon as it left his mouth, venting heavily, and he tried to bring back the appearance of apathy. He almost succeeded, but not quite. //I’ll answer that as soon as you tell me why you’ve been fucking Onslaught behind our backs.//

The shovel-dozer froze.

Mouth twisting into an unpleasant smile, Hook continued. //Oops, was I not supposed to know about that? Rather hypocritical of you, though – going on about me playing with dangerous mechs when you’re off screwing that same mech’s leader every other night.//

//I-I’m not…//

The snarl was back in an instant, the medic's lips pulled back and baring his dentals. //You’re going to lie about it, too!? No. No, don’t you _dare_ try to deny your actions. At least I’ve made my goings-on with Vortex perfectly clear to you, to the team. But you… You hid it. You didn’t want any of us to know, so you dampened your end of the bond every time you went off to… to…//

//But he’s not… I mean…//

//Just because he doesn’t make a habit of getting his hands dirty doesn’t mean he isn’t every bit as much of a threat to your well-being as Vortex is to mine. Onslaught is the one who orders Vortex to _do_ the terrible, vicious things he does.//

Scrapper made an incoherent sound of rage and frustration, taking a step closer before stopping himself.

//Well? Are you going to say anything?//

There was a long pause, in which he forced his vents to slow, his fingers to unclench. Scrapper’s voice was oddly hollow. //No. I am going to walk away, now.// And then he did just that.

Hook watched him go.


	30. Chapter 30

It had all started, several weeks ago, with a question.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

Scrapper looked up from the blueprint that he had been staring blankly at for the last quarter-megacycle. His head lifted from where it had been resting in his palm, elbow on the desk, and he didn’t even have enough presence of mind to be confused as to why Onslaught was in his office. Numbly, he set his hand down on the surface of the desk and cycled a slow ex-vent. “And what, precisely, is ‘it’?”

Onslaught merely offered a small shrug and grabbed the spare chair, hauling it around to the Constructicon’s side of the workspace and sitting beside him. “You look like you could use a willing audio. I’m certain that there’s plenty you need to vent about.”

The engineer just blinked at him, gaze unfocused, and after a moment he realized that Onslaught’s face was visible. The visor was still there, but the mask was retracted… “I don’t want to talk to you.” He hated how much his voice wavered. Just talking about talking was making all the things he was trying not to think about rise to the surface.

“Why not? You’re obviously not using any other outlets available to you. Keeping it bottled up isn’t healthy.”

Scrapper didn’t answer. Instead he looked back down at the plans for his latest invention for several moments. The silence was terrible, mostly because it wasn’t actually silent. He could hear both of their engines, their venting systems… He fancied he could even hear the energon pumping through his own lines, and the green mech was sure his temperature was going to trigger his fans pretty soon. Too close… Much too close. “Go away.”

“Why?”

It was one thing when he was actively angry at the mech – staring one another down, or getting ambushed in the medbay while working… He could ignore the proximity then, if he was distracted by aggression. “Because I want you to.” His voice broke in the middle, and he cringed.

“And why is that? I wasn’t interrupting you, I could tell that much.”

Because I can feel you next to me, you’re much too close, and you’re not Team, and you’re with _him_ , and you’re much too… too… “Just… go. Please.” 

Scrapper jumped up out of his chair when he felt something brush against his arm, and his visor flashed at Onslaught’s upraised hand, lingering next to the vacated chair. The truck tilted his helm, lips curved into a smile that the engineer firmly told himself was _not_ attractive. “You don’t really want me to, though.”

Snarling, the shovel-dozer clenched both fists. “Who are you to say what I do or do not want?!”

The smile became a leer, perfectly-shaped dentals flashing in the dim light. “It doesn’t take an interrogator to tell what _you_ want.”

Scrapper was lunging at the mech before he could even think about what he was doing, intent on hitting, clawing, tearing, causing PAIN. And a moment later he found himself pinned face down on the desk, one massive hand pressed to the back of his helm, another pulling his left arm high up the middle of his back. He snarled again, a vicious sound of incoherent rage, and thrashed.

“Much better,” Onslaught rumbled right next to his audio. “I told you not to bottle it up.”

He didn’t want to think about the effect having that unnervingly large, powerful body pressed flush against his back was having on him. Or the deep growl against the side of his helm. If he thought about it, he might be forced to admit certain things to himself. “ _Get off of me_ ,” he hissed.

Onslaught chuckled, and the sound traveled from his chest into Scrapper’s back. “Not unless you agree to talk to me.”

The engineer roared, thrashing again, and ignored how much it hurt his shoulder to twist like that. He kicked out with both legs, but the Combaticon only laughed and planted his own knees firmly between the shorter mech’s, keeping them spread out wide and unable to even reach the floor anymore. He kept trying to get free, but all he managed at that point was scraping his thighs against the outside of Onslaught’s and knocking several items from the surface he was pinned to with his free arm.

“If you don’t talk to me, I’ll just have to find another way to help you release all that frustration.”

And then Scrapper was gasping as an energon line on his neck was found and attacked. Onslaught didn’t suck, didn’t bite, didn’t lick; he just mouthed over it, running his lips lightly up and down the exposed length. The air he vented out over the cable was hot enough to send a shiver down Scrapper’s back-struts. He clawed at the desk, took hold of the edge in front of him and tried to use it to pull away, but his hips were trapped firmly between the other mech’s own and the side of the table.

The green mech let out a groan that was more of a whine as Onslaught chuckled again, sending vibrations right through his frame. The hand on the back of his head was removed, instead snagging the stray limb that Scrapper was still clinging to the desk with and summarily twisting it right up next to the left one. He didn’t even have time to get angry about that before the mech behind him was nibbling the edge of his alt-mode’s shovel. A warbling, broken sound escaped his vocalizer.

“Tell me you don’t like it.”

Scrapper tried to speak, though he wasn’t sure if it was to confirm or deny, but one of Onslaught’s thighs was rubbing against his pelvis, making his already-heated plating’s temperature rise even further, and all he got out was something that sounded like a choked sputter.

“Tell me you want me to stop.”

He… he couldn’t. He couldn’t even think any more, much less form a verbal response. The stress of suppressing all his worries and fears for Hook, all his hatred of Vortex, had left him emotionally spent even before Onslaught had come in. And then the Combaticon had been there, talking like he actually _cared_ , and getting way too far into Scrapper’s personal space, and smiling – _smiling!_ – at him with that… that _face_. Primus, it just wasn’t fair for a mech like Onslaught, intelligent and competent and self-assured, to be that damned good-looking, too. Scrapper whined again, head reeling, and wiggled in the unrelenting grasp.

The tactician pulled the smaller mech’s arms across one another, so his shoulder-joints stretched to their limits with his hands sticking out to either side, and then his view of the floor switched places with that of the ceiling, and Scrapper had no idea how he’d somehow ended up on his back with his arms now trapped under his own weight. But the mouth was back on his neck, and this time it wasn’t content with just the one energon line. Onslaught could reach much more now, since the shovel and Scrapper’s helm were no longer in the way, and he took full advantage, glossa sliding, hot and slick, and lips moving sensuously.

Helm bumping against Scrapper’s chin, keeping him from pulling it down to block out the attention, Onslaught teased into every gap and connector, breathed humidly against the now-moist wiring, left a tingling trail of fire in his wake. The huge mech’s hands were pressing down on Scrapper’s own, making sure they stayed pinned there, but they weren’t content with merely restraining. No, they alternately interlaced themselves with the engineer’s fingers, sliding between them and running across the gaps. Rounded fingertips danced across the backs and made him twitch, trying to close his hands but entirely unable merely because his palms were trapped flat to the desktop.

Onslaught’s thighs were between his own, still, making Scrapper feel terribly open and exposed, legs spread and aft hanging off the edge of the table. He was burning up. He couldn’t think. He was panting for air and his cooling fans sounded deafening to his own audios. There was a warm mouth running over his chest, now, and a harsh scrape of metal-on-metal as Onslaught ground their pelvises together.

“Open up.”

Scrapper didn’t obey the words themselves so much as the tone they were spoken in. He mewled as cool air hit his interface equipment, then cried out and bucked as his erection was covered by the same heat that had been exploring his chest a moment ago. His spike was engulfed and suckled lightly, just long enough to make him writhe and kick, optics whiting out behind his visor, and then it was left to the comparatively-freezing emptiness of the air between their bodies.

His hands were released, but one massive palm pressed hard to his belly, ensuring that he wouldn’t be sitting up any time soon. “Beg me for it.”

Scrapper howled as a finger, easily twice the size of any of his own, prodded around the rim of his valve. The howl became a sob as the opening was just barely pressed into, then the fingertip moved around in a small circle, teasing the orifice and smearing the small dribble of lubricant around.

“I told you to _beg_.”

He gasped at the sudden shock of exposure as his mask was forcibly removed. The latches weren’t broken, but Onslaught hadn’t been gentle about it and the hinges on his cheeks stung. His open mouth was invaded by the same finger that had just been tormenting his lower regions.

“If you won’t beg, then suck.”

And he did. He sucked on the finger, sickly sweet from the small smear of fluid, but beyond that it tasted of fresh oil, a hint of solvent. A second finger joined the first, and Scrapper’s glossa was lightly pinched between them, the thick digits twisting, running across the roof of his mouth, the space beneath his tongue, the sides and tops of his dental-plating.

The fingers were removed suddenly with a wet pop, and then they were pressing back into his neglected port. Scrapper squirmed, but his legs were already propped open wide merely by virtue of Onslaught’s bulk standing between them, and he was still being pressed down firmly to the desk, and…

By all things holy, they were much too big. Much, much too big. The fingers, slowly wriggling around at his opening, kept dipping in further only to immediately pull back out and smear more lubricant around, but every time they went inside he felt like he was being ripped apart. And yet, he ached. He ached for more, heat pooling in the pit of his abdomen, a tight knot of _need_ coiling just above his interface hardware, deep inside him.

Then one of the fingers – Primus be praised, only one – pressed fully inside and swished around in the growing collection of fluids, and he bucked hard, screaming. And then it was pumping into him, slowly but deeply. It curled against his inner walls, pressed and prodded, twisted… Then it pulled out, and both fingers were pushing in, now.

Scrapper couldn’t even make a proper sound any more. All that escaped his wide-open mouth were broken little almost-noises as his lips trembled, the optics behind his visor nearly rolled up into the back of his helm.

When the fingers were finally replaced with something else, longer and thicker and _textured_ , pumping into him hard, fast, relentless, the overload claimed him, wracked his body with convulsions, sent liquid fire through his veins, and took his consciousness with it.

He awoke with every single joint in his body so sore he couldn’t even sit up, his temperature readings still much too high, his chest spattered in his own transfluid, and a terribly self-satisfied smile hovering above him, decorating the face of one who the Constructicon would later find himself actively seeking out every time Vortex sauntered into the medbay to continue with his poisonous machinations against a mech that Scrapper called family.

“Feel better?”

Scrapper tried to snarl, growl, yell – anything. All that would come out was an exhausted groan.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” That smile was still there. That damn, Pit-spawned, devilishly-handsome smile. And there were hands… Hands gently picking him up, releasing his arms from their prison, scooping him up against a large chest, and Scrapper…

Scrapper, barely able to move, nonetheless curled in tighter against the broad expanse of plating, and shut off his optics.


	31. Chapter 31

Hook looked down, expressionless, at his pedes, dangling just above the floor. The smooth, flat planes of the metal that reached down from his knees to meet them were polished and clean. The angles and lines were crisp, perfect. Every gear, every wire, every miniscule connector, while not necessarily new, was refurbished to factory-fresh condition – or as close as could be attained considering their circumstances on this backward planet.

He looked down at the new limbs, and he felt nothing. Oh, there was sensation in them, to be sure – Bonecrusher and Scavenger had, as always, been splendid assistants, doing exactly as Hook instructed throughout the procedure; even when they’d had to leave their comfort zones and actually finish the construction of the limbs themselves.

They all knew where Scrapper was.

Hook slowly flexed one ankle – first up, then down, and to either side. The process was repeated with the opposite joint. He extended that leg in front of him, lifting it parallel to the floor, then let it fall.

His fingers clenched against the edge of the medical berth, so tightly that they shook, the tension going all the way up to his shoulder. A grey lip curled upward into an ugly expression, the dental-plates behind grit together.

And then he relaxed. The grip loosened, his arm went slack, and his face was impassive once more. Hook still only had one optic and one arm. That was alright. It would be slow, but he could finish the reconstruction of his left arm while one-handed, so long as his Team – those that were still _around_ – helped out. He couldn’t fix his own face, and the others weren’t qualified, but as long as he didn’t think about it and wasn’t confronted with too many reflective surfaces, he could deal with that. For now. Until Scrapper…

The edge of the berth bent beneath his fingers, the metal deforming to fit his grip. His face did not so much as twitch.

Hook vented out a quiet sigh as thick arms looped under his own, wrapping securely around his middle. He let go of the table, and flexed his fingers. Bonecrusher settled his chin on the medic’s shoulder. //Relax.//

Scavenger came up and took the pristine hand in his own, gently massaging the fingers. //It’ll be okay, Hook. Promise.//

Hook sighed again and carefully pulled away; shifting off of the table slowly, Hook stood. He looked down at his pedes. And then he looked up. He retrieved a new visor from where it sat on a nearby tray, affixed it carefully so that it would sit straight despite one side of his helm being no more than so much slag, and went to the room where his arm was waiting to be finished.


	32. Chapter 32

Vortex was under no delusions about how the Constructicons felt about one another – it was love. As far as he could tell it was all completely platonic, despite a few things being a bit iffy (such as ‘Haul and ‘Crusher banging out of frustration, or Scavenger’s petting sessions). However, that didn’t make it any less valid as _love;_ they were willing to live and die together, protect each other, suffer as a unit, and do it all without giving it a moment’s thought. Not entirely unheard of, but a rarity aboard the _Victory._ There were others, like Soundwave and his Cassetticon terrors, that were the same way, but still – not a common thing, and quite frankly it was beyond a lot of the Decepticons’ capacity to understand.

But Vortex understood. It was his _job_ to understand how relationships worked – the way that mechs felt about one another. He recognized the gestalt’s love, studied it, understood it… and was therefore all the more amused by the fact that Hook and Scrapper had spent the last fifteen days acting like they hated one another.

Just over two local weeks – an orn and a half – of half-hidden glares, overtly-polite conversation, and a feeling of tenseness that invaded every crevice of the medbay… Every time they spoke – out loud, thankfully, since it seemed to be an ingrained habit to do so whenever they had an audience – it was curt, crisply enunciated, and with not a single superfluous word to be found. The heliformer was finding it hard not to act like he was watching a very entertaining play – if Hook wouldn’t have punted him out of the room for it, he’d have grabbed Breakdown and a cube of energon, and started making commentary on the whole matter. Then again, Breakdown probably wouldn’t have found it quite as funny – he liked his shows to be of a more physical nature, and this was all passive-aggressive. Then _again,_ who cared what Breakdown thought?

Anyway, the tension was building. The fact that Scrapper only showed up about half as much as he usually did was failing to help. Probably because the reason for his absence was that he was spending that additional time with a certain other gestalt-leader… And Hook knew it.

As far as Vortex was concerned, Scrapper could just keep on digging that hole deeper. The rotary would be patiently standing by, waiting to shove the grave-marker in on top of him just as soon as he reached the bottom.

However… the Combaticon was not overly fond of the ill effects all the emotional strain was having on Hook’s behavior. Being ticked off at Scrapper was one thing; it was another thing entirely if he was getting snappish with Vortex when he not only wasn’t even _trying_ to be a nuisance, but, in fact, was attempting to be _nice._ Perhaps it was time for a little ‘preventative maintenance.’

\-----

Scavenger was leaning against Hook’s leg. The excavator had offered to fetch things, to help in any way he could, but for now the medic did not require anything as he continued the delicate process of wiring a functioning limb. Most of the work had already been done; what was left was tedious but required a good deal of concentration. Twisting a bit, Scavenger shifted so that his arms lay crossed atop Hook’s lap, his bare, mask-less cheek resting on the silver thigh. He inhaled, vents opening wide before the air rushed back out in a comfortable sigh, and his tail twitched to one side.

Hook felt himself relax just slightly as his gestaltmate’s fingers began lazily tracing patterns up and down his legs. Tension that he hadn’t known had been building up in his frame began to bleed back out at the soothing sensation. Movements loosened – his single hand worked no less precisely, but his motions were smoother; less forced. Hook felt his shoulders sink marginally. Working with Scavenger nearby was so very preferable to working alone.

But then, of course, he stiffened right back up when he heard Vortex arrive. “Heeeey, Hookums!”

The architect gave a long-suffering groan. “Hello, Vortex.” He felt Scavenger move his head to glance at the other’s entrance, but the fingers did not still, presently in the process of dancing out mathematical equations on his shins.

“Hey, ‘Tex,” Hook heard in a somewhat sleepy tone from somewhere near his knees.

Vortex pretended to have only just noticed the tailed Constructicon. “Oh, hello down there, Scavvy. You look comfortable.”

His tail gave another swish, bumping lightly against Hook’s pede. “Mhmm.”

“Vortex, I am somewhat preoccupied with restoring my final limb. Please return later.” His tone, while not exactly hostile, did sound a bit aggravated. Would it really kill the interrogator to just give him some space until his body was _whole_ again? …Actually, this was Vortex; it was more likely that the helicopter keeping his distance would kill somebody _else_ … Or at least maim them.

“Awww, don’t be like that. I just want to watch.”

Hook’s optics flicked towards the Combaticon, expression otherwise blank. “No. You don’t.”

The grey mech giggled. “Okay, you’re right. I don’t _just_ want to watch. But that is _part_ of why I’m here! How close’re you ta bein’ finished, anyway?”

Gaze moving back to his incomplete arm, Hook considered. Actually… he was pretty close to done. Just a bit more soldering to do and then he could start fitting on the new plating. He ignored the fact that the rotary had come up behind him and was now leaning over his shoulder, helm almost touching his own. “Perhaps another two megacycles.”

It would be half of that, if he had two hands to work with; the armor panels were already made, although he might have to have Scavenger hold them in place while he did the welding. Actually… Bonecrusher was the better exterior welder, even when Hook wasn’t handicapped. Perhaps he should have him do it – then it would only be a meg-and-a-half; one to finish soldering, the half for Bonecrusher to do the plating. Yes, that sounded like a good plan. The sooner he had all of his limbs attached, the better.

“Awesome!” Vortex’s happiness at the projected time was almost palpable, and Hook could feel a slight breeze from the mech’s rotors starting to spin. “When you’re all done, we’re going on a date.”

Hook’s steady movements abruptly froze, right before he cursed as solder dripped where he hadn’t meant for it to, quickly setting his equipment down so he could wipe it up while it was still liquid. “…A _date?_ ” Solder crisis averted, he twisted his helm to stare at the other mech with incredulity.

Vortex made a very, very pleased sound before speaking. “That’s right! I’d insist on leaving right now, but’m pretty sure you’d refuse to go anywhere without all yer limbs in working condition.” He chuckled. 

“Your hypothesis would be correct. Now… a _date!?_ ” he repeated, turning his body halfway to continue the baffled staring.

“Yup! We’re going out so you can get some much-needed stress relief.” The ‘copter’s rotors continued to spin at an unhurried pace, hands now clasped behind himself as he wiggled his hips from side to side.

“…I do not need ‘stress relief.’ I am fi-…” Hook cut himself off to look down at his knees. Scavenger was glaring at him, and had pointedly jabbed a finger into the medic’s midsection. Groaning, Hook looked back up at the bright, distinctly smug optical band of the helicopter. “As it seems that my own opinions on the matter are of no consequence… Very well; exactly what is it that this ‘date’ shall consist of?”

“Nope! Not ruining the surprise.”

“Of course not.” Hook rolled his functioning optic and turned again towards his work. “If that is all, then.” He picked his solder back up and reignited the torch protruding from one finger. Then he paused, noting that the grey mech was once again leaning over his shoulder, watching. No, of _course_ Vortex wouldn’t take a clear dismissal for what it was. Resigned, he didn’t even bother to sigh, and went back to applying heat.


	33. Chapter 33

Hundreds of ants, perhaps thousands, swarmed the dropped sandwich. They surrounded it, ran over it, and carted off small chunks of bread and meat to wherever their home was. They worked diligently, efficiently, as they bustled together in a seething mass of small, shining bodies. As soon as an observer managed to pick out any single, particular insect, it was lost again amongst its fellows in the writhing heap, immediately indecipherable from the rest.

Crouched nearby, a small boy watched. He was bored, and the ants could prove entertaining – at least for a short while. Lifting a stick, he poked it hard at the sandwich, flipping it just outside the ceaselessly-moving blob of tiny lives. He watched as the once-organized chaos became simply _chaos._ Many of the ants that had fallen off of their perches at the sudden relocation of their food ran in crazed circles; _all_ of the ants now ran in seemingly random directions, desperate to find where the sandwich had gone. The boy chuffed out a small laugh, but the fascination was already waning and he started to stand.

He fell back down almost immediately as an explosion erupted out of a building two streets over to his left. Hunched in the dirt, he cried out and covered his ears against the pain of the sudden noise. Screams had begun to ring out from the small city almost at the same time as the blast; vehicles blared their horns and screeched their tires. Another explosion rocked the ground beneath the boy’s feet, coming from somewhere further away and to the right.

Tears streaming down his face, he scrambled back up, shaking, and ran as hard as he could. He ran into other people that were also running, almost none of them in the same direction; some ran from the first detonation, some ran from the second, and others ran _towards_ them. The boy was knocked to the ground in the panic and he remained there, wailing in terrified confusion as adults rushed by without notice.

\-----

“Vortex…” Hook pulled the trigger; windows shattered as a wall burst outwards, the building consumed in flame.

“Hmm?”

“Far be it from me to question your methodology…” Walking forward several paces, Hook swung his arm a different direction and fired again.

“Mhmmmm~?”

“But how, precisely, is this supposed to help?” The gun felt heavy in his hand; a burden, rather than a comforting weight. “This is even less interesting to me than an energon raid. I highly doubt that this will have any sort of ‘relaxing’ effect. In fact, it is merely tiresome.”

“Mm, that’s because you’re doing it wrong~,” the helo sing-songed from where he was perched – a massive, living gargoyle, surveying all beneath him with a cheerful disposition.

“Wrong?” Hook asked. He turned, firearm lowering to his side. There was a siren in the background, accompanied by a multitude of high-pitched noises that might be screaming. He ignored them; they weren’t important.

“Yup!” Vortex stared down at the green and purple mech, visor bright. “…Try it without the gun.”

The medic looked at his blaster for a moment, then slowly turned a disbelieving optic up at the other Decepticon. “…You told me to destroy the buildings.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you think that I should go about doing so with my _hands?_ ”

The death-grey mech shrugged, swept-back rotors moving with his shoulders. “Hands, feet, vehicle-mode… Whatever.”

Hook sighed, pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge in exasperation. “Vortex, that will take far too long. The gun is a more efficient means of demolition, by far.”

“Efficient? Yes. Effective for our purposes? Definitely not.”

“And what exactly _are_ our purposes? You have yet to specify, other than your increasingly vague references to ‘relaxation.’”

Vortex held up both hands as he shrugged. “Catharsis.”

“…Catharsis.”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations on your discovery of synonyms that in no way further expound upon what we are doing here. I have already explained that these actions are more irritating to me than pleasurable. This is increasing my negativity, not alleviating it.”

“Because you were doing them wrong.”

“Vortex, I…” Hook made a face as one hand tensed like he wanted to strangle the other mech. Then he forced it down, venting a heavy sigh. “Alright. So you think that this will be relaxing for me, yes?”

The ‘copter nodded firmly.

“And you say that I should do this the less efficient, _manual_ way, yes?”

More nodding answered him.

“And we aren’t going to have Autobots descending upon us en masse for my actions because…?”

“Oh, they’re taken care of.”

“Taken care of,” Hook deadpanned, even as his gun rose again, almost without conscious thought, to shoot at some sort of emergency vehicle that was the source of the sirens. It had been approaching rapidly, and experience told him that such an arrival tended to herald tiny, projectile-firing guns that irritated his sensors and marred his paint. The car promptly exploded, the humans that had been inside of it burning to a crisp, not all of them immediately dead.

“Yes.”

“Meaning…?”

“Nope.”

The corners of the medic’s mouth pulled down, lips pursing slightly as his optic narrowed. “Don’t give me that. You cannot just say ‘nope’ every time you do not feel like answering a question.”

“Why not? It’s more honest than what _you_ do when you don’t feel like talkin’ about somethin’.”

Hook paused and blinked. Then he sputtered slightly as the words fully registered and gave the rotary an affronted expression. “Ex _cuse_ me?!”

“Every time you don’t wanna answer, you ignore it like it wasn’t even asked, then change the subject,” Vortex replied, matter-of-factly. “At least I’m _acknowledging_ your desire for information and being upfront with my unwillingness to respond.”

Watching the now lazily drifting rotors with something akin to apprehension, the Constructicon took a moment to mull that over. His gaze shifted slowly away, staring into the middle distance in front of him. His face smoothed out, then rearranged into a more thoughtful frown. “Hm. Perhaps you have a point.”

Vortex nodded firmly again, then shifted to sit on the ledge he’d been crouching on, legs dangling off and his hands gripping the concrete between his thighs. “I know that I do. Now, to more important matters,” he said imperiously. “Are you or are you not going to proceed with rendering this human settlement to naught but ash and rubble with thine very hands?”

Hook snorted at the sudden, playful change in tone, a wry half-grin splitting his face. “I suppose that I shall have to, won’t I? You’re my ride, after all.”

\-----

Thin, pliable deadmetal twisted under his fingers. He could feel the contamination of human-made, chemical-based paint smearing against his palms. Earth vehicles were just so _fragile;_ it was pathetic, really, how simple it was to pick it up and… rip.

Hook lifted a truck of some kind, heaving it up over his own head. He felt tensile cables strain, hydraulic systems pumping fluid through the joints of his arms and legs to bear the brunt of the weight, and his feet pressed hard into the concrete below, gravity pulling both him and the inanimate vehicle inexorably downwards. The medic shifted his stance, pedes moving a little wider, before he rolled his whole body into the throw. He felt the sudden lightness of self, tension released all at once; it was oddly euphoric, and the Constructicon found that fact somewhat disturbing.

A block away, the truck made impact with an armored vehicle whose occupants lay… elsewhere; several elsewheres, in a couple of cases. Hook paid it no mind, already looking for something else to pick up. He selected a light-pole on the side of the street, wrenching it out of the concrete in which it was planted, and swung. The lamp exploded in a shower of glass as the bulb burst and the windows it had been shoved through shattered. He felt his chest tighten, his shoulders jar slightly, and his fingers begin to sting from the impact.

It felt good. It felt really, really good. This was utterly baffling to him, just how much fun it was. Demolitions were Bonecrusher’s specialty, not his. Hook was the _surgical engineer._ Hook was the _architect._ Hook was the one who never got his hands dirty; save, of course, for when he had to reach those hands inside of someone. The enjoyment he was experiencing from this wanton destruction made absolutely no sense.

But he _was_ enjoying it. And so the medic continued. He continued for almost an hour. And by the end he was trembling and exhausted, giddy with the exertion and optic over-bright. His vents cycled air as fast as they could, attempting in vain to cool a superheated frame in the already hot, arid environment.

“Well~?”

Hook half-turned, panting heavily, and looked up at where Vortex had sprawled himself once the crane had gotten too far away during his rampage to comfortably watch from his original perch. “Well,” pant-pant, “what?”

The grey mech scoffed, amused, and gave a little rotor-twirl. Because the grounded mech’s tired grin made it clear that he knew _exactly_ what he was being asked about. “ _Well,_ how was the experience?”

Turning fully to face his companion, Hook tipped his head upwards and slightly to one side. The grin stretched wide, showing off dental-plates. “Cathartic.”


	34. Chapter 34

It felt ridiculously nice, having Hook inside of him.

Well, halfway inside of him, in any case; the green mech was hunched within the cargo hold of his alt-mode and one door had to stay open so that his legs could hang out. But still – inside was inside, fully or partially. Vortex so rarely had passengers, and it was rather pleasant to have that empty space filled up for once. Seriously, alt-mode voids felt _weird_ when they weren’t in use; he had no idea how Blast Off could stand it all the time – shuttle holds were way, way bigger than his own little one. Of course, the only time his teammate’s hold was empty was if he was doing orbital patrol… But still!

“Enjoyin’ the view?”

Hook snorted, leaned heavily against one side of the cabin. “What view? We’re over desert.”

“Well, yeah, but at least it’s not ocean?”

Internal sensors picked up that the medic was shrugging. “I suppose that’s true enough.”

“By the way, gonna be landin’ soon. Need to refuel and let my engine cool down.”

The medic was smirking, now. “What’s that? You mean you _don’t_ want to cause yourself intentional damage just to give me grief? I’m shocked.”

“Oh, har-har-har; very funny. I’ll have you know, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of being stranded out here for an extended period.”

“No? But you’d have my undivided attention and nowhere for me to hide,” Hook teased.

“…”

The medic stiffened slightly. “Vortex… No. That was a _joke._ You are _not_ to take that as a serious idea.”

“…Yeah, yeah, I know. Besides, we’d prob’ly just get picked up by Autobots before anything fun could happen.” A mech could dream, though. Ah, to be Hook’s sole company for days… “I am informed that they don’t _usually_ have patrols in this particular sector o’ the planet, but if we’re in one spot for too long, I’ma bet that ridiculous Sky Spy o’ theirs would _eventually_ notice us.”

“Hmph.” The medic paused. “…You never did tell me why we were safe from Autobot retribution for my actions, earlier. Is this country so out of favor with them that they would refuse distress calls?”

“Eh, that’s part of it. Apparently the leading party here thinks of the ‘Bots and us as some sort of… I’unno, _hoax_ or whatever, and that we’re all built by the Americans. So they’ve declared that if they see any of us here they’re gonna take it as an act of war. Only reason we haven’t hit them for a raid, yet, is ‘cause they’ve pretty much got nothin’ worth stealin’.”

“Oh…” Hook paused to roll that around in his processor. “Have we just started an international incident?”

“Pro’ly!” Vortex couldn’t have kept the glee out of his voice if he’d wanted to – and he didn’t want to.

“Hrm.” The medic was shrugging again, unconcerned.

The helicopter chuckled as he set down next to some old buildings – most likely a defunct military base. It was just so funny how little consideration Hook gave to those who he deemed unimportant. And it wasn’t just that the humans were a different species, either – he looked at Autobots, and even a number of the Decepticons, with the same lack of care. Granted, the native inhabitants of this planet _did_ seem to be at the bottom tier.

The Constructicon edged his way carefully out of Vortex once the rotors stopped spinning, steadying himself against the helicopter’s side. “Why didn’t you want to explain that earlier?”

Transforming – languidly, meticulously – back to root-mode, Vortex stretched his backstruts, arms above his head. “I just wanted to see if you’d take my word for it.” The grey mech twisted from side to side, visor bright and clear amusement in his tone.

Hook made a soft, derisive noise, but Vortex could see the half-hidden smirk, belying any true irritation. “It would seem that you got your answer.”

“Heehee – indeed, I did!”

“So,” Hook was eyeing a half-collapsed building skeptically, hands on hips, “how long until we can continue?”

Vortex snickered, wandering over to a pile of vaguely-rectangular blocks that might have once been a wall, and sat down. “ _You’re_ the medic; shouldn’t you know the answer to that?”

The medic glared at one side of the architecture, scowling at it like it had personally offended him. “Not if I don’t know what your current fuel levels are, how hot your engine is, or how eager you are to get into the air again.” His voice lacked any bite, tone matter-of-fact; that scrutinizing expression of disgust was _all_ for the building’s benefit.

“Heh, guess you’ve got a point, there.” The helicopter wiggled his aft, trying and failing to find a comfortable place atop his mountain of rubble, and quickly gave up. He returned to his feet and meandered towards the Constructicon as an idea formed. “I’ll prob’ly be good to go in a few breems. In the meantime…” Vortex came up behind the other Decepticon, but did not touch; he leaned around the green mech’s side, peering at the still-mangled face from behind an arm. “Whaddaya say to continuing this exercise in relaxation, mm?”

Hook glanced down his nose at the visor peeking out from next to his elbow, expression mildly curious but mostly skeptical. “Oh? And here I thought that the date was over.”

“Pfffft! Date ain’t over ‘til I walk you to your door and kiss you goodnight, Hookum-schnookums,” he taunted, one hand waving in an overly dramatic flourish.

The quality of the look that that statement caused, while a subtle change from the former, was significant; the rotary couldn’t quite place why, though, until the Constructicon spoke. “Are you interested in kissing me, Vortex?”

The Combaticon paused, not having expected that. “…Are you offering?” he hedged. This was kind of… odd. He’d been anticipating an optic-roll or a laugh or a sneer of contempt, not… whatever this was.

Hook turned to face him more fully, leaning in. “Are you _capable?_ ” he countered, expression serious and gaze intense.

Vortex’s optical band flashed in recognition. Oh… So _that_ was what this was about. Ah, that made much more sense. The grey mech giggled, feeling back in control now that he understood. “ _You’re_ the medic,” he repeated his line from earlier, verbatim. “Shouldn’t you know the answer to that?”

And then Hook _grinned,_ and Vortex felt his fuel-pump speed up just a little at how predatory it was. Damn, who knew the introverted architect could pull off an expression like _that?_

“Yes, I should,” the Constructicon answered. “But you’ve never had your face damaged beyond some minor dents, and I’ve never needed to see what’s behind that faceplate of yours.”

Vortex felt himself leaning backwards as Hook tipped closer, energon racing through his lines. Oh, if only the green mech knew what that grin – that domineering aura – was doing to him… Then again, maybe he did.

“However,” Hook continued, and Vortex would be damned if that tone wasn’t a _growl,_ “I have my suspicions.”

Feeling himself starting to lose balance from how far back he was tilted – the rotor-assembly made him rather top-heavy – the helicopter took a step backwards. And then he promptly felt himself heating up in a way that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on them, because Hook was stepping in closer, pushing his advantage as the grey mech gave ground with a second step. His fingertips tingled with excitement as his swashplate hit the wall. “Do you, now?” His voice remained calm, despite everything. “And what might those be?”

“ _Well,_ ” the medic began, and brought up one hand to rest along the bottom edge of Vortex’s jaw-line, thumb gently brushing over the flat plane of the mask. “Having spent so much time with you, I find it highly unlikely that you would ever neglect to use any particular…,” he paused, thinking it over, then smiled in an utterly self-satisfied manner when he found the right word, “ _tool_ in your toolbox. I have seen you take fuel plenty of times; never have you done so via your mouth. You have also offered to please me sexually on a _great_ number of occasions, but not once have you proposed to do so orally. Thusly, I have come to the probable conclusion that you do not have a mouth, else you would have been begging to use it on me ages ago, in your continued attempts to seduce me into taking physical pleasure for myself.”

The helicopter was frozen where he stood, save for the vibrating rotor-blades attached to his back. He’d just been analyzed. Hook, the mech that had only paid attention to his own team’s behaviors and concerns for _years,_ never bothering to concern himself with any of the habits or particulars of any of the other Decepticons, had just fracking _analyzed_ him – intelligently and _accurately,_ too. Vortex felt his joints seize up, his fuel-lines swell, and his exterior plating prickle with tension. He stood there, a statue of himself, as he stared in shock. That was… until he sprang forwards all at once, all that tension uncoiled in an instant, wrapping himself bodily around Hook. His arms looped themselves around the other mech’s neck, faceplate buried in the medic’s neck cabling and scraping itself along the tubing. His legs had curled tight around Hook’s hips and he ground himself hard against the purple pelvic-span. Vortex was reasonably sure that the expression the taller mech was giving him now was along the lines of ‘distinctly bemused,’ but he didn’t _care,_ because that had been one of the most arousing displays of self-assured dominance he’d been subjected to in a _long_ while.

Hook chuckled, chest rumbling against the helicopter’s rapidly-shifting, clinging body. “Either I am correct, or you are trying to distract me from thinking further on the subject. Admittedly, if it is the later, you are doing a good job.”

Green hands came up and ran over the quivering blades, and Vortex keened at the touch. “HolyfraggingPrimus, _that was so fucking hot,_ ” the rotary moaned, the fingers of one hand buried at the base of Hook’s helm, tangled in wires, and he was gratified to hear a soft hitch in the other mech’s venting. “Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease, just fucking _do me!_ ” Vortex was essentially rutting against the medic, panel already open, staining the other’s purple paint with lubricant and rubbing his erection along the abdominal plates.

“Hmmm… I’ll think about it.”

That smug tone, laced over with barely-noticeable static, spoke of very good things, but the writhing mess of a Combaticon still managed a disappointed huff, knowing that it had been Hook-speak for ‘no.’ Then he wasn’t so disappointed anymore because one of the hands on his rotors really started to go to work, and the other hand reached down to stuff a pair of fingers inside of his valve from behind.


End file.
